The Jets hired Dave DeGuglielmo as Bill Callahan’s replacement at offensive line coach and his first press conference went a long way toward explaining why.
DeGuglielmo and Rex Ryan must have gotten along famously when they met for an interview. DeGuglielmo met the media on Wednesday and most of the quotes, provided by Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, sound like they could have come from Rex.
DeGuglielmo said that he isn’t scared of “the ghosts of Bill Callahan” because the difference between them is that DeGuglielmo has a Super Bowl ring (won while on Tom Coughlin’s staff for Super Bowl XLII) and Callahan doesn’t. He also refused to compare this year’s group to the one from two years ago because he was 230 pounds two years ago and is 290 pounds now.
“I fluctuate 60 here, 60 there. It’s like peeing in a pool. Nobody knows the difference.”
DeGuglielmo saved some of his strongest words for right tackle Wayne Hunter. Hunter was not good in 2011 and the Jets haven’t found any potential upgrades this offseason. DeGuglielmo doesn’t sound like he’s looking for one. He said they should “strap shields to this guy and put him in The Coliseum” while emphatically saying that Hunter’s his right tackle.
“How he reacted to some of those bad plays maybe that’s something that he needs to work on,” DeGuglielmo said. “But I’ll be honest with you: This guy is the starting right tackle. Until they tell me otherwise, until they ship him out of this building or until they shoot me dead in my office, that son of a gun is going to be the starting right tackle and he’s going to play well.”
Things are never boring around the Jets.
