Rex Ryan, Woody Johnson have made the New York Jets the new Giants of the NFL

[SoFlaJets]

If the Jets had a brand before they hired Rex Ryan, it was this: Same Old Jets. But look at them now. Look how fast things have changed in one year with a coach like Ryan and an aggressive young general manager like Mike Tannenbaum and an aggressive owner, Woody Johnson, nobody saw coming. Look at how people are talking about the Jets even now, in the second week of baseball.

The Jets were always the Other Team in town, always living and playing in the shadow of the Giants after Joe Namath. They have been the Other Team the way the Mets are to the Yankees. The difference is that the Jets are doing something about it. The Jets go one way these days and the Mets go another.

Tannenbaum has become the general manager in his league everybody is talking about, a disciple of Bill Parcells who doesn't wait around for something good to happen, to change a culture. Ryan has been a coach everybody has been talking about for months, since he became a guy in sports with a big mouth and big talk who could back it all up.

The Jets are Tannenbaum, Ryan. The Mets are Omar Minaya, Jerry Manuel. For now.

The Jets keep coming hard, making edgy plays for Antonio Cromartie and now Santonio Holmes, who won't make his debut in the fall of 2010 until the fifth game of the season because of a drug suspension. But the Jets get both for practically nothing, believing that Ryan can coach anybody. Tannenbaum needed another cover corner and another guy who could catch Mark Sanchez. Didn't sit back. Doesn't sit back.

The Mets shouldn't be thinking about the Yankees or worrying about them, because they aren't in the same league, in all ways. They should look at where the Jets are right now and how they got there and ask themselves if they see something happening for them the way it is happening for the Jets.

The Other Team has become the hot team right now. The Jets aren't obsessed with the Giants. Just winning it all.

"Our charge is simple," Tannenbaum was saying Tuesday afternoon. "Our owner wants to win the Super Bowl. He's given us that mandate. He's told us to do whatever we had to do, within reason, to win it all. And so we are going to relentlessly pursue that."

It wasn't so long ago that Tannenbaum, who started out in pro football as an unpaid intern, looked overmatched against Jerry Reese of the Giants and everybody else. He just did. Woody Johnson had given him the big chair and then Tannenbaum had hired Eric Mangini. Two kids taking over the principal's office. Things looked pretty swell. For one year. Then they began to go wrong, and Mangini was gone, and if Tannenbaum was wrong about the next coach he hired, then the next one out the door was going to be him

He hired Rex Ryan. He and Woody Johnson sat in a room with Ryan, and when Ryan walked out, interview over, Tannenbaum says now that he and his owner had the same reaction.

"How could somebody have not hired this guy to be a head coach before this?" Tannenbaum said.

Ryan was 7-7. It looked like the Jets were out of the playoffs. Ryan thought they were out of the playoffs. Then they won those two regular-season games and won two playoff games and were ahead of the Colts, 17-6, at Lucas Oil Stadium and were that close to going back to a Super Bowl. The coach had guaranteed that the way Namath had guaranteed that the Jets were going to beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

And suddenly the Jets were hot again. And remain hot.

"Bravado doesn't come as easy to me as it does Rex," Tannenbaum said. "But we're a team. My job is to get players for him. If I learned one thing from Coach Parcells, it's that you better have a relentlessness and a passion to improve your team every day. I know that there are only two jobs like mine in New York. I honor the privilege of what I do, working with Rex and for an owner like Woody Johnson, every day."

The whole league is talking about them. This week they are talking about the chance Tannenbaum took on Holmes, who was a Super Bowl MVP about 20 minutes ago. He gets into trouble in bars. Has trouble with marijuana. But remember where Tannenbaum learned. From Parcells. Whose best player, the greatest Giants player of them all, was Lawrence Taylor. Parcells thought he could coach anybody.

So does Rex Ryan.

"Woody and I have the belief in our coach's ability to relate to all sorts of different people," Mike Tannenbaum said.

The coach does all the talking. But backing his play is the quiet general manager who keeps betting big. He does it when he trades up for Sanchez. He does it with Antonio Cromartie, for whom Father's Day ought to last longer than Mardi Gras. He does it with Santonio Holmes. He risks very little on the front end, believes that Ryan can coach players like these to the Super Bowl.

Of course the Jets are going to be on that HBO series "Hard Knocks" this year. Who else were they going to pick?

"We feel," Mike Tannenbaum said, "as if we have a great story to tell."

Football guy. Jets guy. Making headlines in a baseball month. The Jets are more exciting in April than the Mets are. Think about that. The Mets should. The right guys can still do it like this in sports. Do the Mets have them?

[neckdemon]

why did they have to ruin this article by bringing up the abortion that is the mets?

[Vudu]

Nice read.

LOL@ this:

He does it with Antonio Cromartie, for whom Father's Day ought to last longer than Mardi Gras

[Lil Bit Special]

It all means nothing if we end up 8-8 or 9-7.

Sorry... I still have this feeling in the back of my head that its all going to come crashing back down to earth next season.

[RutgersJetFan]

He risks very little on the front end...

This really should have been the focal point of the article, it's what separates him from almost every other GM in the league sans 2-3 guys and he never gets enough due for it.

[PS17]

It all means nothing if we end up 8-8 or 9-7.

Sorry... I still have this feeling in the back of my head that its all going to come crashing back down to earth next season.

I try to be very optimistic and I am. I just have a hard time getting rid of the SOJ mentality that something bad is gonna happen. If we have another excellent year, I'm convinced that it will go away.

[Lil Bit Special]

I try to be very optimistic and I am. I just have a hard time getting rid of the SOJ mentality that something bad is gonna happen. If we have another excellent year, I'm convinced that it will go away.

Im sure that the SOJ is gone for good. And I feel bad that I cant get that feeling out of my system. But when you've been hurt so many times by something you love so much, its tough to believe them when they say its going to be different from now on.

[penguini 15]

Once something bad happens, people will be screaming SOJ till no end.

[Lil Bit Special]

Once something bad happens, people will be screaming SOJ till no end.

Not me. I'll be cowering in the corner with my big-boy helmet on and my meds spilled on the floor. I fear SOJ.

[PS17]

Not me. I'll be cowering in the corner with my big-boy helmet on and my meds spilled on the floor. I fear SOJ.

Me too. I fear the SOJ twice as much as any team in the league.

[flgreen]

Not me. I'll be cowering in the corner with my big-boy helmet on and my meds spilled on the floor. I fear SOJ.

This really cracked me up. Ain't it true

[Bruce Banner]

I have a hunch that people are sick of the way the Pat's success a few years ago made hiring corporate robots like Mumblecheck and Mangini the new fad. I think people would be open to a new fad of hiring people who act like real people the way Rex does. All it would take is three super bowl wins in four years and the Jets would be the new model franchise of the NFL and every team would be trying to hire a jolly fat guy as head coach.

[Lil Bit Special]

I have a hunch that people are sick of the way the Pat's success a few years ago made hiring corporate robots like Mumblecheck and Mangini the new fad. I think people would be open to a new fad of hiring people who act like real people the way Rex does. All it would take is three super bowl wins in four years and the Jets would be the new model franchise of the NFL and every team would be trying to hire a jolly fat guy as head coach.

Those poor elves would be crushed if Santa left the North Pole for a head coaching gig in the NFL.

[LWC611]

What is amazing is that after an article that should make us feel good, Jets Fans still find a way to speak negative. I am life long Jets fan so I understand the sentiment and the SOJ thing, but we are making moves for a major run on the Lombardi and I think we should all be positive.

[Lil Bit Special]

What is amazing is that after an article that should make us feel good, Jets Fans still find a way to speak negative. I am life long Jets fan so I understand the sentiment and the SOJ thing, but we are making moves for a major run on the Lombardi and I think we should all be positive.

we're not speaking negative. Im excited for next season. I dont expect them to disappoint. And my SOJ fear is irrational and completely unwarranted.

[Jbro22]

The Giants are the most boring franchise in sports.