Rex Ryan can’t stop talking about the Jets.
The Bills coach has been talking about his firing from the Jets for a few months now. The latest interview airs on HBO’s “Real Sports” next week. In it, Ryan said he knew the Jets would stink in 2014. He was right. They finished 4-12.
“I knew we weren’t going to have a good team when we never did anything in free agency,” Ryan said, taking his latest shot at John Idzik, the Jets general manager who was fired after last season.
Despite proclamations last year that he had confidence in the Jets, it is clear Ryan was just putting on a show and being a company man.
“100 percent I knew I was done,” Ryan said when asked if he expected to be fired even before the season began. “Yep, 100 percent.”
Ryan clearly has plenty of disdain for Idzik, but he continues to express the strong feelings he still has for Jets owner Woody Johnson, the man who hired him in 2009 and fired him last year.
“We talk like brothers. I know Woody never wanted to fire me,” Ryan said. “I could have been his coach for 20 years, that’s what Woody wanted. There’s no question Woody wanted that.”
Ryan was asked if he believes he could have remained the Jets coach.
“Maybe. But I’ll tell you this — he couldn’t [keep me],” Ryan said. “There’s no chance that he could have brought in another GM and kept me again. There’s no way. It wouldn’t have worked in New York, they weren’t going to allow it. The media wouldn’t allow it; it wasn’t going to work.”