Jan. 14, 2010

Jets' likeability soars on playoff march to respectability

By Gregg Doyel | CBSSports.com National Columnist
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CINCINNATI -- It's easier to like a team when it wins than when it loses. I'll say that up front. Success is charismatic, and so is the happy aura that comes with it. So it's possible I'm biased when I say the following:

What's not to like about the New York Jets?

Seriously. Why does everyone -- other than Jets fans -- seem to dislike the 2009 New York Jets? I don't get it. Not after seeing them for myself on Saturday here in Cincinnati, where they eliminated the Bengals from the playoffs. And I really don't get the rampant dislike of Jets coach Rex Ryan.

Loudmouth? This guy? I don't see Rex Ryan as a loudmouth. I see him as a confident sort who's not afraid to look into all those cameras and actually say something, but that doesn't make him a loudmouth. It makes him interesting. And it makes him human.

And I bet that's why his team seems to like him so much: He's real -- a rounder, jollier version of Dick Vermeil. He's not afraid to cry, and he's not afraid to laugh, either. Minutes before kickoff Saturday, he learned that punter Steve Weatherford was experiencing an irregular heartbeat. Ryan held him out for fear that Weatherford would suffer a heart attack, but the realization that kicker Jay Feely would have to punt "about gave me one as well," Ryan told the media later. Ryan immediately rethought that remark, knowing that a heart attack is no laughing matter.

Rex Ryan is doing a great job in keeping things light, and keeping his team confident. (US Presswire)

"But it kind of is," he decided.

And I'm supposed to dislike that guy? Sorry. Can't do it. Can't dislike his team, either, starting from the quarterback on down. First, let's go down the list. After Feely learned he would punt -- and Feely wasn't a punter in college or even high school -- his first reaction was, "Oh crap." And then after he did surprisingly well, downing three punts inside the Cincinnati 15, he laughed at himself by noting, "I'm bad enough that I'm a good pooch punter." I like that.

After backup running back Shonn Greene ran for 135 yards and a touchdown, relegating Thomas Jones to just 15 carries for 34 yards, I trained my eyes on Jones after the game. This is a guy who ran for a career-best 1,402 yards this season and already has endured an uprising from within, considering the Bears drafted Cedric Benson in 2005 to replace him in '07. So I thought the game Saturday would tick Jones off. I never got to ask him that question, because he was too busy hugging Shonn Greene. And I like that.

But what I really liked was Mark Sanchez. It's possible that he receives too much attention for a guy who has thrown more interceptions (20) than touchdowns (12), but that's the way it is with a quarterback in New York. He's going to get a ton of attention. It's not his fault. Sanchez is a victim of the same phenomena that befell Tyler Hansbrough at North Carolina and Tim Tebow at Florida: oversaturation. TV announcers do what TV announcers do, waxing hyperbolic about Sanchez's poise or promise or even his looks -- and the rest of us rebel. It's what we do.

But it's not what I'm doing. Not here. Not against Sanchez, who has the look of a matinee idol but the music collection of a dork. After the game Saturday he plugged his iPod into a docking station and turned up the volume just enough for people like me to hear it as we walked past. And I'm sorry I could. Sanchez has a whole slew of 1980s hits in his catalog, most egregiously Down Under from Men at Work. When 38 Special's 1981 hit Hold On Loosely came on, Sanchez sang along.

"If you squeeze too tightly," he crooned, badly, "you're gonna lose control."

I sense an analogy coming, and here it is: Rex Ryan doesn't squeeze too tightly, and neither do his players. And so when the Jets and Bengals played a playoff elimination game on Saturday, and it was time for one team to squeeze too tightly, that team wasn't the Jets. It was the Bengals. Quarterback Carson Palmer threw the ball like Rick Ankiel in the 2000 National League playoffs -- high, low or wide. When he was on target, like a potential touchdown pass to Chad Ochocinco, the ball was dropped. Kicker Shayne Graham missed two short field goals. And on and on. Cincinnati choked. Why did the Jets win? Because they didn't.

And it starts with Ryan, who motivates his team like Mike Krzyzewski motivates his at Duke -- meaning, he brainwashes them. He damn near hypnotizes them. Ryan has spent so much time telling everyone how good the Jets are that those sonsofguns actually believe it. Ryan is all about the power of positive thinking, and examples are legion, but here's my favorite: When the Jets reported to team headquarters for their first practice of the postseason and Ryan gave them a day-by-day playoff itinerary, he ended it by noting the team's Super Bowl parade would be held on Feb. 9.

Some people got outraged. The nerve! Me, I love it. What else is Ryan supposed to do -- get all mealy mouthed and tell his team he hopes and prays they're good enough to beat the historically rotten Bengals? Hell no. He told them they're going to beat the Bengals, and then whoever's next, and whoever's next, and finally whoever's waiting in the Super Bowl. And whether you like it or not, that's irrelevant.

His players love it.

"At this point," Jets tight end Dustin Keller told me Saturday, "I'd believe any little thing he told me."

Rex Ryan told the Jets they'd win the Super Bowl. Those knuckleheads believe him. And I'm supposed to dislike him, or them, because of it? You do it. I can't.