After predicting the Super Bowl and falling short of the playoffs, Jets coach Rex Ryan acknowledges that he didn’t do a good enough job in 2011.
But Rex is still Rex, and that means he’s still confident that the Jets are heading in the right direction.
“Our locker room wasn’t as close as it’s been in the past, obviously, but one thing we know is we’re going to fix it,” Ryan said in an interview with ESPN. “We might have been knocked down this year but we’re not knocked out. We’re going to be swinging, and there’s no doubt about it. But I can’t wait. It’s about moving forward, put that stuff behind us. But there’s things we’re going to learn from. This past season, 8-8 clearly is not good enough. We did have some issues where, obviously, I never did a good enough job of recognizing it and fixing it, but we’re fixing it right now. There’s no doubt about that.”
Some unnamed Jets have said they think the way to fix the team is to get rid of Mark Sanchez and replace him with Peyton Manning, but Ryan reiterated that he’s behind Sanchez.
“I can’t talk about Peyton Manning. He’s on some other team right now,” Ryan said. “But Mark Sanchez is the future of the Jets. He’s a great quarterback and again, I can’t wait to get it going. You look at it: 4-2 in the postseason, 28-20 in the regular season over the three years that Mark and I have been together and we’re going to be together a long time.”
But while Ryan is sold on Sanchez, he may have a tough job on his hands convincing everyone else in the Jets’ locker room to get behind the quarterback.
