Other than passive-aggressively not sending any players to the Orioles opener, the Ravens have mostly played nice about not being able to open the season at home.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan has no such qualms about ripping his former neighbors.
The one-time Ravens assistant ripped the Orioles for not moving a game so the defending champions could open the season at home. Instead, the Ravens will begin the year at Denver.
“Well who really cares, you’ve got 81 at home, maybe you could have done the right thing and given one up and then played 82 on the road and then 80 at home,” Ryan said, via Seth Walder of the New York Daily News. “I really don’t think people are going to care about that game (between the Orioles and White Sox).
“You have a chance to have the defending world champs open up the season at home where they rightfully should. That’s unfortunate.”
But wait, there’s more.
“Certainly I can understand, if baseball only had a 16-game schedule you might understand it,” Ryan said. “But when they have 162 games, you might just [have the] common courtesy and say, you know what, maybe I’ll play this one on the road or whatever.”
Rex is not fooling us. The Orioles filibuster was simply a way to keep from talking about opening the season against the Buccaneers (and perhaps a certain cornerback).