Jets' potent defense largely the work of ... what's his name?

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- The New York Jets have the league's top-rated defense, its best pass defense, its best scoring defense and the runner-up to Charles Woodson for Defensive Player of the Year. So here's the question: Anybody know who coaches these guys?

You heard me. Who is their defensive coordinator? I posed that question to a group of friends one afternoon, and I might as well have been asking who replaced Mick Ralphs as lead guitarist for Mott the Hoople (it was Ariel Bender).

The popular response to the Jets' quiz is Rex Ryan, but Rex is the team's head coach, not its defensive coordinator. So who is?

Answer: Mike Pettine, and a weekend for two in Cabo to anyone who can pick him out of a lineup.

It's not that Pettine isn't well-known in the New York area. It's that he's not known at all. The perception is that Ryan runs the Jets defense and is responsible for its success, and while some of that is true, the fact is the Jets -- and their defense -- wouldn't be where they are today without the influence of Pettine, whom Ryan calls his "right-hand man."

Yet ask a Jets fan to name that "right-hand man," and you might stump Fireman Ed.

"I don't know why he doesn't get more credit," cornerback Darrelle Revis said of Pettine. "He should get the recognition, but he's just not that type of guy."

There are, of course, a couple of explanations for Pettine's low Q rating. First of all, the defense is not his; it is Ryan's. Ryan is the architect; Pettine is the caretaker, there to make the changes Ryan demands.

Second, there is Ryan himself. The guy is enormously popular with players, fans and the media and isn't afraid to make bold predictions, take a jab at New England's Bill Belichick or poke fun at himself -- which puts him on the covers of local tabloids.

Pettine is virtually invisible, rolled out once a week for interviews at the team's complex but generally kept out of the public eye. Even on Sundays you will have a tough time finding him when the Jets play. He doesn't work from the sidelines but instead takes his place in the coaches box high above the playing field to communicate what he sees to Ryan on the sidelines.

I've seen TV cameras zoom in on offensive and defensive coordinators, but I've never seen Mike Pettine flash across the screen.

"I've got to keep him down for a couple of years because I don't want to lose Mike," Ryan joked this week. "Truthfully, he's a guy who was a 'must-hire' for me. He was my right-hand man in Baltimore, and his sidekick -- my sidekick -- is Dennis Thurman. That was a team we had to take with us.

"Wherever we went -- if I was going to get the opportunity to be a head coach or Dennis was or Mike Pettine was going to be a head coach we were all going to take each other. We had a lot of success in Baltimore, and we knew we would have success wherever we went."

In one season the Jets have gone from a respectable defense to an elite one. The envelope, please: They allowed the fewest points and fewest yards. Opposing passers were held to a league-low 58.8 rating and only eight touchdown passes. They allowed an NFL-low 38 scoring drives, none of them four plays or fewer. They were the league's best at preventing third-down conversions. They allowed the fewest number of plays of 10 or more yards. They had the highest percentage of three-and-outs.

Mike Pettine is Rex Ryan's 'right-hand man' after following his boss from Baltimore to the Jets. (US Presswire)

I think you get the picture. The Jets were this year's Baltimore Ravens, suffocating opponents with a defense that didn't allow an offensive touchdown in six games, all of which they won. Normally when that happens, you hear about the coordinator because normally when that happens he shows up on somebody's head-coaching list.

Not Mike Pettine.

"All I know is that we don't overlook him," said linebacker Bryan Thomas. "He's the one in there leading the meetings and going over the defense. Mike knows his stuff, and he tells us what to look for, what to expect, what to do and what not to do. So Mike is a very important key to this defense."

He must be. His players speak fondly of the guy, and his head coach trusts him to run his defense, relies on his observations and acts on his suggestions. As Thomas pointed out, when the Jets hold their defensive meetings it is Pettine who runs them, not Ryan. And when there are game-day changes that need to be made to blitz packages or pressure schemes, it's Pettine who offers them to his head coach.

"You see the way he interacts with Coach Ryan," said safety Jim Leonhard, who played for Ryan in Baltimore, "and the way they set things up during the week. It's not just Rex. They balance each other out really well, as far as Pettine having the knowledge that not too many coaches have of this defense. Rex is known as the mastermind who creates some of that stuff, but they play off each other really well."

"He knows his position," cornerback Donald Strickland said of Pettine. "He's our D-coordinator, and he makes the calls out there. He puts us in the right situations, and we feed off that. Rex is the defensive guru, but he's one step underneath him."

The son of a highly successful high-school football coach in Pennsylvania, Pettine found Ryan through a chance encounter -- getting a job as a video coordinator with the Ravens in 2001 after talking to then-offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh. Nobody expected Pettine to stay in the Ravens video department, but then nobody knew he would become a defensive coordinator within 10 years, either.

Of course, some still don't. When I spoke to an AFC offensive coordinator the other day, I asked what he could tell me about Pettine. He couldn't, and don't tell me you're surprised.

"I don't know anything about him other than his guys are playing better than everybody else's guys," he said. "I don't know what the does, but his name is on it, so he gets the credit."

Actually, no, he doesn't.

"You would think he would, you really would," said linebacker Calvin Pace. "It is Rex's defense, but Mike puts his own little touch on it. Rex is the man with the master plan, and I don't think Mike really cares. But I don't know why he doesn't get more credit. He really should. Maybe if we go out and win this game he will."

You can only hope.