Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn took a job as an assistant under Rex Ryan with the Jets in 2009 and remained a key part of Ryan’s staffs right up to the point when he became the interim head coach when Ryan was fired by the Bills last year.
Working for Ryan as an assistant head coach prepared Lynn for his promotion “by helping me see the big picture,” but Ryan’s personality didn’t change the way Lynn approaches the job. Lynn said he doesn’t have the same kind of closeness in his relationships with players that Ryan developed over the years and that he has gotten “the most out of [players] because of fear.”
“I would never call myself a players’ coach,” Lynn said, via ESPN.com. “But I think the real players, they crave the discipline. They crave the accountability, and that’s what I’m going to hold you to. We’re going to operate that way. And guys that don’t like it, they won’t be around.”
Lynn did say that he feels more balanced after working for Ryan and that he feels neither a players’ coach nor a dictator-type coach can survive for a long time because players wind up tuning them out. That may be the case, but the trait shared by most long-term coaches is that they win a lot more than they lose as a record like that lessens most personality concerns.