Before the launch of today’s edition of PFT Live (it was one of our best yet, which isn’t saying much), we caught wind of an intriguing item from Ian O’Conner of ESPNNewYork.com.
Former Dolphins V.P. of football operations Bill Parcells tells O’Conner that Parcells recommended that the Jets hire Rex Ryan in 2009, after the Jets fired Eric Mangini.
“I had a fierce rivalry with Rex’s father when I was coaching the Giants,” Parcells said, “but I held Buddy [Ryan] in high regard. What made Buddy a dangerous adversary was that he knew what he was looking for personnel-wise, and Rex is the same way. That’s a pretty good head start for Rex because there are quite a few coaches in this league who don’t know what they’re looking for.”
Parcells said that Ryan was the second choice in Miami a year earlier, behind Tony Sparano. "[W]hen I interviewed him it wasn’t so much Rex that struck me as [it was] guys like Rex,” Parcells said. “Guys who grew up in football like Bill Belichick, guys whose fathers were coaches. . . . Those guys are just different. They get it. They have a great understanding of things that a lot of people who haven’t been in football their whole lives don’t have, and Rex was one of those guys.”
As we observed during PFT Live, plenty of Dolphins fans may now be wishing that Ryan had been the Tuna’s the first choice in 2008.
Plenty of Dolphins fans also may be wondering why Parcells would have been saying anything to a division rival (other than a three-word phrase starting with “go” and ending with “yourself”) while running their favorite team.