It became obvious in the waning days of Rex Ryan’s run with the Jets that they were kind of a dysfunctional mess.
A new General Manager didn’t seem to be on the same page with the coach, and that lack of direction seemed to doom both Ryan and John Idzik.
Now that he’s in Buffalo, Ryan says it’s easier to see some of those issues.
“When I look back on it, I looked at when I should’ve been more upfront with the owner,” Ryan told Albert Breer of NFL.com. “I think that was a big thing: ‘Look, we got some issues, this needs to be resolved.’ I knew what was gonna happen. We all knew it.
“But now, there’s no way in hell [that happens again]. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging. And if it happens, it’s gonna be, ‘Here’s some issues we need to fix.’ And hit them head on.”
Ryan has spoken at length many times this offseason about his admiration for Bills owner Terry Pegula, who has aggressively pursued Ryan’s vision. And it’s clear he thinks the parts are in place to make the Bills a winner, despite their obvious flaws.
“You have to roll the exact same way, and we don’t need anybody that’s gonna be an anchor to this team or have a hidden agenda,” Ryan said. “Once you chop all that off, we’re gonna be pretty good. And again, we may not get to where we wanna go -- we wanna paddle to a damn Super Bowl, everyone gets that. We may end up somewhere else, but at least we’re gonna go together. . . .
“We all want the same thing. We wanna win and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get there. We see it. We know the direction that we need to take. There’s no hidden agendas. There’s no whatever. This is how we’re gonna do things, and we’re gonna get it done. We won’t compromise, and we will make sure people are on the same boat, paddling in the same direction.”
And if the boat sinks this time, it’s going to be easy to find the captain.