Blogs – Page 213 – Keefe To The City

Jan 12, 2015

The Rangers’ California Dream

The Rangers weren’t supposed to go to California for three games and come back with their winning streak alive, but they did after sweeping the West Coast.

In the last 35 days, the Rangers have lost once. Once. An eight-game winning streak and a five-game winning streak sandwiched around a 3-2 loss in Dallas that wouldn’t have happened if Glen Sather didn’t give Tanner Glass a three-year, $4.35 million contract. After a slow and injury-plagued start to the season made me think we might not see the kind of run the Rangers went on last spring for another two decades, the Rangers got healthy, got hot and have turned the last five weeks into a demolition of the rest of the league.

Prior to the Rangers’ California road trip, their 10 wins in 11 games came against Pittsburgh, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Carolina (2), Washington, New Jersey, Florida and Buffalo. If the season ended today, only Pittsburgh, Vancouver and Washington would be playoff teams out of that list. So it made some sense that Rangers critics were skeptical of how good they had been because they beat up on the bad teams in the league (which is exactly what good teams do) even if they had outscored their opponents 40-17.

California was supposed to be the end of the Rangers’ best run in 20 years. Three games in four nights against the league’s best team points-wise, the defending champions and the team that has been predicted more to win the Cup than any other team in the last nine years was supposed to confirm for the critics that the 2014-15 Rangers aren’t ready to be considered elite or Cup contenders. But four days and six points later following their run against the Pacific Division, the Rangers are both of those things.

Let’s look back at a memorable weekend, in which the Rangers went 3-0 against the Ducks, Kings and Sharks and outscored them 11-5.

ANAHEIM
The hype that usually surrounds the Sharks, also surrounds the Ducks, but because the Ducks won the Cup in 2006-07, they have been less of a disappointment than their two-year-older division rival. Over the last seven seasons since their Cup run, the Ducks have yet to return to the Western Conference finals and have lost all three Game 7s they have been in. However, this season, the Ducks have played like the best team in the league over the first half of the season despite the assumption that the Western Conference finals will once again include the Kings and Blackhawks.

Going into the California road trip, I figured the Rangers would likely leave the West Coast with two points. They had won 10 of 11 and when they met the Ducks on Wednesday night, it would have been 10 days since the Rangers’ last home game. (From Dec. 29 to Jan. 18 the Rangers will play 10 games and just two of those will have been home.) At some point, the travel would catch up with the team near the halfway point of the season, so this felt like the time it would happen.

After getting out of the first period tied 0-0 in Anaheim, it felt like a minor victory. The Rangers had outshot the Ducks 11-8 in the first, but with the Rangers having traveled and the Ducks in the middle of an eight-game homestand, I expected a different start to the game and figured we would watch an opening 20 minutes of dominance from the home team.

The Rangers went up 1-0 after two and eventually took a 2-0 at 2:32 of the third and I figured that with over 17 minutes left to play, at some point we would see the league’s leading team in points show how they compiled those points with incredible play at the Honda Center. It never happened. Sure, I was worried when Francois Beauchemin cut the lead to one before Mats Zuccarello and Dominic Moore put the game out of reach, but I was never truly worried about the Rangers losing the game.

At the time, it was the Rangers’ biggest win of the season. They had gone cross country to face the best team (in the standings) in the middle of a lengthy homestand and beat them offensively and defensively, and of course in goal. And that’s been the most refreshing part about what the Rangers have become: they can beat you more than just in goal. Since the lockout, the Rangers have relied on Henrik Lundqvist to win games for them because more often than not their scoring hasn’t been able to. That’s no longer the case and even with Lundqvist being near-perfect on the first night of the trip, he didn’t have to be.

LOS ANGELES
I didn’t agree with Alain Vigneault’s decision to play Cam Talbot against the Kings. Lundqvist had won 10 of his last 11 starts, giving up more than two goals just twice, and had played just once in the last four days even if that one game happened to have been the night before. And 5:49 into the game when the Kings took a 2-0 lead on the softest of goals allowed by Talbot, I had a few choice words for my TV directed Vigneault. Why wouldn’t you play Lundqvist against the better Kings rather than the Sharks? Let Talbot play in San Jose and then Lundqvist has Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off before playing the Islanders on Tuesday night. But Talbot settled down and only gave up one more goal over the remaining 54:11 of the game, another one to Williams.

After what happened last June in Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, this time it was the Kings blowing a two-goal lead even if it came on much lesser scale in a much less important game. Four unanswered goals from the Rangers (two power-play goals), including three in the second period (two of which were 19 seconds apart) and the Rangers had done to the Kings what they had done to them seven months ago. It didn’t avenge what happened on that same ice on June 4 and 7, but it did make me smile and made me realize that this Rangers team can get back to where last year’s team went. It made me realize that this Rangers team is better than last year’s team.

I can’t remember a time feeling confident that the Rangers could win any game. East Coast or West Coast, home or away on back-to-back nights or after a five-day layoff, the Rangers can be expected to win every game against any opponent. I have never had this feeling about them before and the only downfall of this amazing five-plus week run that started on Dec. 8 is that I wish the playoffs started today and not three months from now.

SAN JOSE
I was at a dinner on Saturday (that thankfully lasted the entire Patriots-Ravens game so I didn’t have to watch that debacle), which eventually led to going to a bar while the Rangers-Sharks game started. After what the Rangers had been through over the last 12 games and what they had been through in just the last two in Southern California, when I spotted the game on at the bar and went to look at the score, I expected them to be winning. Let me repeat that: When I checked the score of a Rangers-Sharks game being played in San Jose, I expected the Rangers to be winning.

Last season, the Rangers were embarrassed with a 9-2 loss in San Jose in the third game of the season, a game in which the Rangers would also lose Rick Nash for 17 games thanks to a concussion. When the two teams met again on March 16 at MSG with the Rangers battling for playoff position down the stretch, the Rangers lost again, this time 1-0.

But there I was expecting to see the Rangers winning a game in San Jose, their third game in four nights in California, and they were. It was 2-0 Rangers when I looked at the score near the end of the first period and I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Winning on the road against the Western Conference is now something that has become expected, even if having expectations when it comes to the Rangers is a dangerous game. And not only winning on the road, but winning period is now expected from this team a season after they reached the Stanley Cup Final.

Nothing has ever come easy for the Rangers or their fans though getting two points each game for the last five weeks has felt pretty easy and because of how easy it’s been, it feels weird. Now that the California sweep is complete, the Rangers are back home and back on the East Coast to face the Islanders and Bruins and things aren’t likely to stay this easy, but I wish they would.

Blogs • Giants

Jan 9, 2015

NFL Divisional Round Picks

It’s the supposed best week of the playoffs. Four games over two days with the 1-seeds in play. Either the hated (at least hated on this site) Patriots or the scummy Ravens will lose, either

It’s the supposed best week of the playoffs. Four games over two days with the 1-seeds in play. Either the hated (at least hated on this site) Patriots or the scummy Ravens will lose, either Tony Romo or Aaron Rodgers will go home and either Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck’s season will be over. And, oh yeah, the Panthers’ season is over because they are going to get run out of Seattle.

I ended the regular season two games over .500, needing to go just 5-6 in the playoffs to finish over .500. After last week’s 1-3 disaster thanks to believing in Ryan Lindley on the road, the untrustworthy Steelers and a Bengals team led by Andy Dalton and Marvin Lewis playing without A.J. Green and Jermaine Gresham on the road, I’m making things interesting when they don’t need to be. I deserved to go 1-3 with choices like that.

This week will be different because it has to be. There is too much on the line when it comes to my picks and My Super Bowl XLIX Dilemma and an eventual champion.

(Home team in caps)

Baltimore +7 over NEW ENGLAND
The Ravens’ wins this season have come against Pittsburgh (2), Cleveland (2), Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Tennessee, New Orleans, Miami and Jacksonville. Their losses have come against Cincinnati (2), Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Houston. The Ravens have gone 2-6 against winning teams, and both of their wins came against their rival in the Steelers. They are the 6-seed in the AFC and the only reason they were able to sneak into the playoffs is because half of their schedule this season was played against the AFC South and NFC South. So why does anyone think the Ravens can beat the Patriots or even keep the game close? The real answer is I have no idea, but for me, I have no choice other than to hope the Ravens can keep the game close and to hope that they can win the game outright.

It pains to me to have to root for the Ravens, considering that they’re probably the scummiest organization in all of professional sports (yes, even scummier than the Red Sox), but like I said, I have no choice. The Patriots are two wins from getting back to the Super Bowl and three wins from ending what will be a 10-year drought if they are eliminated this week or next week or lose in three weeks in Super Bowl XLIX. But no matter what happens today, if the Ravens win or the Patriots win, we all lose. Either the Patriots are one step closer to doing something they have failed to do for the last nine seasons, or the Ravens will be that much closer to becoming champions in a season in which all of the karma in the world should be going against them.

SEATTLE -11.5 over Carolina
This should be the 4:30 game on Saturday because people have things to do at that time on Saturday and missing this game and checking later to see the Seahawks won by 30 points is acceptable.

Last week, Jon Gruden seemed amazed every time the Panthers made a mental or physical mistake against the Cardinals. Gruden couldn’t believe that the Panthers could be so bad or so careless with the football in a playoff game. And each time Gruden’s voice hit astonishing levels, I so badly wanted Mike Tirico to interrupt him and remind him that the Panthers are a 7-8-1 team that would have been focused on their draft position rather than a playoff game if they had played in any other division. Five of the other division winners finished with 12 wins (4.5 more wins than the Panthers) and the other two finished with 11 (3.5 more wins than the Panthers).

The Seahawks won 12 games, a year after winning 13 games and three more in the playoffs. They have gone 28-7 over the last two years and after starting 3-3 this season, they are 9-1 over their last 10 and have given up a total of 39 points in the last six (6.5 points per game).

The Seahawks are the best home team and the best team in the NFL and they are going to win the Super Bowl. The Panthers might not score on Saturday night.

GREEN BAY -6 over Dallas
The game of the week played between two teams I hate with one having to move on and play for a trip to Glendale. It’s a nightmare situation like the Red Sox and Angels meeting in the ALDS or the Flyers and Devils meeting in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Cowboys were the 11th-ranked team in My Super Bowl XLIX Dilemma, just ahead of the Patriots. (The only team that could challenge the Patriots for the top spot is the Eagles.) Their season should have ended last Sunday against the Lions before the refs took over the game, screwed the Lions over on the pass interference and then did everything other than carry the ball into the end zone themselves on the Cowboys’ go-ahead (and eventual game-winning) drive.

The Cowboys don’t deserve to still be playing football and the Packers at Lambeau will make sure of that.

DENVER -7.5 over Indianapolis
I used to think if the Broncos could win the 1-seed in the AFC and host the AFC Championship Game then the Patriots wouldn’t have a red carpet to the Super Bowl. But ever since the Broncos were 6-1 and went to Gillette Stadium in Week 9 and left with a 43-21 loss, they haven’t been the same team. Sure, they were 6-2 after their loss to the Patriots and they went 6-2 over the final eight weeks of the season, but something has been off about the Broncos.

Unfortunately, I think the best chance of the Patriots getting eliminated before the Super Bowl is this week against the Ravens and that’s not a very good chance considering the Ravens couldn’t beat a winning team all season not named the Steelers. Neither the Broncos or Colts are going to beat the Patriots on the road, but the Broncos’ chances are better than the Colts’ since their team is one player.

I really, really, really hope the Broncos can find themselves and return to being the team that ran through the AFC playoffs a year ago. Because without that happening, Super Sunday isn’t going to be about gambling, getting drunk and eating 5,000 calories. OK, it’s still going to be about those things, but it’s really going to be about continuing the drought.

Last week: 1-3-0
Season: 128-128-4

Blogs • Giants

Jan 2, 2015

NFL Wild-Card Weekend Picks

The regular season finished with a 127-125-4 record and it’s only going to take a mediocre postseason to finish over .500 for the year.

The picks regular season finished strong and with a final record of 127-125-4. That means I have to go just 5-6 in the playoffs to finish over .500 for the season. That shouldn’t be too hard, but a bad slate of first-round games won’t make it easy.

(Home team in caps)

Arizona +6.5 over CAROLINA
The Panthers finished the season 7-8-1, won their division and received a home game for the first round. Five of the other division winners finished with 12 wins (4.5 more wins than the Panthers) and the other two finished with 11 (3.5 more wins than the Panthers).

The NFL needs to fix the playoff format to avoid ever having a 7-8-1 team hosting a first-round playoff game. Four years ago, when the Seahawks won the NFC West at 7-9, they hosted the defending champion Saints and beat them and everyone let it slide because a 7-9 team had never made the playoffs before and they just figured it would likely never happen again. But it did happen again just four years later. And a 7-9 team didn’t make the playoffs, a 7-8-1 team did.

There needs to be a rule implemented that if an under-.500 team can win their division and get a playoff berth, but they can’t host a first-round playoff game. There’s no reason the 7-8-1 Panthers should be hosting the 11-5 Cardinals this weekend.

PITTSBURGH -3.5 over Baltimore
The Steelers have the best chance of any of the teams in the AFC playoffs of eliminating the Patriots. Normally I wouldn’t root for the Steelers, unless they’re playing the Ravens, but the idea of them going to Gillette and knocking off the Patriots next week is reason enough.

Cincinnati +4 over INDIANAPOLIS
For some unknown reason, I have an irrational confidence in the Bengals. No matter how many times they screw me over, I continue to pick them. But sometimes it works out for me like it did on Monday Night Football in Week 16 when I bet the Bengals +185 to beat the Broncos.

As much as I shouldn’t trust the Bengals is how much I don’t trust the Colts. They already beat up on the Bengals back in Week 7 with a 27-0 win, but that’s what they do, they beat up on other bad teams. This is a battle of bad teams, so I’m taking the points.

Detroit +6.5 over DALLAS
The worst part about the Giants not winning the NFC East and making the playoffs aside from not making the playoffs is that another team has to win the division and make the playoffs. Last year it was the Eagles, this year it’s the Cowboys. Next year it better be the Giants or it will be a fourth straight postseason-less year for them and Tom Coughlin will no longer be the head coach.

I want the Cowboys out of the playoffs and out of them as fast as possible. As long as a Cowboys-Patriots Super Bowl matchup is a possibility (no matter how remote of a possibility it might be, it’s still a possibility) I have to worry about it and I just want to watch the NFL playoffs and have fun doing it and not have to worry about Super Sunday being ruined.

Last week: 8-7-1
Season: 127-125-4

Blogs • NFL

Dec 30, 2014

My Super Bowl XLIX Dilemma

The Giants won’t win Super Bowl XLIX, but some team will, so it’s time to figure out who to root for the in the NFL playoffs.

Someone will win Super Bowl XLIX, but it won’t be the Giants.

With the Giants officially on Day 2 of the offseason (I say “officially” because you could make the case that some of them have been in offseason mode for weeks and some never even left it for the regular season) their season has ended in December for the third year in a row. Without the Giants in the playoffs, it’s time to once again rank the 12 playoff teams in order from which team I would most like to see win Super Bowl XLIX to which team I don’t want to see win at all.

1. Cardinals
In 2013, Bruce Arians’ Cardinals finished 10-6 and missed the playoffs because of the deep NFC West, while the 8-7-1- Packers won their division and hosted a first-round game. This season, Arians lost his starting quarterback, Carson Palmer, for Weeks 2, 3 and 5 (they had a bye in Week 4), and then to a season-ending injury in Week 10. The Cardinals went 6-0 when Palmer was their quarterback and 5-5 when he wasn’t. The Cardinals could have been looking at becoming the first team to win the Super Bowl in their own building if Palmer hadn’t gotten hurt, but now they have to settle for starting either their third- or fourth-string quarterback in the playoffs. Arians has dealt with some bad luck through his first two seasons with the Cardinals that could only be paid off with a miraculous run in the playoffs. It’s not going to happen, but I’m rooting for it.

2. Broncos
I don’t think the Broncos are capable of going to Gillette Stadium and beating the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. I wish they were and I hope they are, but Peyton Manning in that building just isn’t the same guy he would be if the Broncos had earned the 1-seed and would be hosting that potential game. Peyton is going to need a second Super Bowl win to be considered the greatest quarterback ever and not just the greatest regular-season quarterback ever. He had his chance in Super Bowl XLIV and again in XVIII and I hope he gets the chance again in XLIX because that will mean the Patriots won’t be there.

3. Seahawks
Last year, I had the Seahawks ranked eighth in this column because I didn’t want to see Pete Carroll running around the field as a Super Bowl champion. At the time, I said, “In a world where college coaches will do anything and I mean anything to get a better job, Pete Carroll is the poster boy for how to get ahead after he left USC with a two-year bowl ban and the elimination of 30 football scholarships for another shot at the NFL.” But then the Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII and I got over seeing Carroll as a champion and actually grew to like the Seahawks this season, mainly because I believe they are the one true team that can beat the Patriots in a potential Super Bowl matchup.

4. Colts
The Andrew Luck lovefest is too much to take. I understand that he is going to be the face of the league once Peyton Manning and Tom Brady retire and Aaron Rodgers gets older, but can we wait until we get to that point before we anoint him as that player?

Even though I have the Colts ranked fourth, I want them to lose in the first round because they have absolutely no chance of going to Gillette Stadium and beating the Patriots in the divisional round if that is the matchup that happens. The Colts were run out of their own building by the Patriots, well Jonas Gray really in his fourth career game, and that game barely involved Tom Brady and the passing game (19-for-30 with 257 yards), so there’s a 100 percent chance they will get routed on the road.

5. Lions
The lasting image from the sidelines of Super Bowl XLV is Jim Caldwell standing there with the only look he has, which is one of confusion, and that look was only intensified following the Saints’ onside kick to begin the second half in a game the Colts could have put away if Pierre Garcon didn’t drop a would-be touchdown pass from Peyton Manning. Somehow, the Lions thought Jim Caldwell was the right man for the prime of Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson’s career even after watching Caldwell stand speechless and wearing a headset seemingly connected to nothing for three years as the Colts’ head coach. I wouldn’t really mind if the Lions won the Super Bowl because they have been so bad for so long, but thinking of Caldwell as a Super Bowl-winning head coach is hard to fathom and accept.

6. Bengals
Last year, I said the following about the Bengals:

What is there not to like about the Bengals? Or should I say, what is there to not like about the Bengals? Unless you really hate gingers and therefore Andy Dalton or want to see the Bengals playoff win drought endure another year, there’s no reason to care if the Bengals win it all.

Well, this season, the Bengals cost me numerous picks, parlays and teasers, and most of those were the product of Andy Dalton turning the ball over, so there is a reason to care if Dalton and the Bengals win it all.

7. Panthers
Ah, there’s nothing quite like a 7-8-1 team winning their division and getting a first-round home game. I might as well have left the Panthers off this list because without either a strong offense or defense, they are the least likely team to get to the Super Bowl, so spending time writing this paragraph about them has just been a waste of time. And let’s not forget what I wrote about them last year:

I’m still mad at the Panthers for their Super Bowl XXXVIII loss to the Patriots that gave the Patriots their second Super Bowl in three years. And I’m still mad at the Panthers, well mainly just Jake Delhomme, for destroying that divisional round game against the Cardinals in 2008 with five interceptions, costing me the Panthers -10 pick.

8. Packers
Let me remind you of how the Packers’ season have ended in the Aaron Rodgers era:

2008: Missed playoffs
2009: Lost in wild-card round
2010: Won Super Bowl
2011: Lost in divisional round (first game)
2012: Lost in divisional round after beating Joe Webb and the Vikings in the Wild-Card round
2013: Lost in wild-card round

In the last six years with Rodgers as the starter, the Packers have won five playoff games with four of them coming in the same year. And if the “Miracle at the Meadowlands” doesn’t happen, the Packers don’t even make the playoffs in 2010 let alone win the Super Bowl. If the Packers win the Super Bowl, the never-ending praise for Rodgers is only going to get worse.

9. Steelers
Ben Roethislberger a three-time Super Bowl champion? No one wants that. But I do want Big Ben to at least get to the big game (as long as he isn’t facing the Cowboys when he gets there). Because if Roethlisberger is in Arizona then that means the Patriots aren’t and right now, I feel most confident about the Steelers upsetting the Patriots in the AFC playoffs than the Broncos or any other team.

10. Ravens
I spend every season rooting against the Ravens after what happened in Super Bowl XXXV, but this year my anti-Ravens rooting was even more pronounced thanks to their handling of their off-the-field issues and owner Steve Bisciotti’s press conference on the matters. And the cherry on top of it all was Joe Flacco going 21-for-50 for 195 yards and three interceptions (his line was way worse until the fourth quarter) against the Texans and destroying a teaser I had. There is nothing to like about the Ravens and if they win Super Bowl XLIX, Flacco would be a two-time Super Bowl champion.

11. Cowboys
There is only one team I want to win Super Bowl XLIX less than the Cowboys. The Cowboys are part of my most hated sports team group, which also includes the Red Sox, Mets, Cardinals, Eagles, Jets, Flyers and the next team on this list. A Super Bowl win for the Cowboys gives happiness to Jerry Jones and all of the fraud fans around the country, who have never been to Dallas, but are somehow Cowboys fans and gives Tony Romo the validation he needs to solidify his career and clear his name from the No. 1 spot in the Superstar Without A Championship power rankings. Tony Romo as a winner and a champion? I don’t think anyone wants that. Especially Giants fans.

12. Patriots
From the 2010 playoffs:

There is no way I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. None at all. I would rather walk across the George Washington Bridge naked, during rush hour, while it’s freezing rain than see the Patriots win.

Without the Giants in the playoffs, I don’t feel confident in any other team’s ability to eliminate the Patriots in the postseason. Last season, I felt confident in the Broncos’ chances at home in the AFC Championship Game and in 2012,

Sure, the Patriots have home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, but they were home for the 2012 AFC Championship Game against the Ravens, the 2010 divisional round against the Jets and the 2009 divisional round against the Ravens. They have lost at home in the playoffs and they can lose again. The problem is that out of the other five teams in the AFC playoffs, only the Bengals, Broncos and Colts have played the Patriots this season, going a combined 0-3 and getting outscored 110-58. In other words, the AFC field is bad. Really, really, really bad. The team’s with the best chance of extending the Patriots’ Super Bowl drought to 10 years are all in the NFC, and by the time the Patriots would have to play the NFC, there will be only one game standing between them and winning the Super Bowl and anything can happen in one game.

I’m scared that this is the year the Patriots finish the job after losing two Super Bowls, three AFC Championship Games, two divisional round losses, a wild-card round loss and a missed postseason over the last nine years. But the one thing keeping me from penciling the Patriots in as the Super Bowl XLXI champion is Mike Hurley telling me that he has seen better Patriots team he thought would win the Super Bowl and they didn’t.

The Patriots have to lose.

Blogs • NFL

Dec 29, 2014

The Rex Ryan Love-Hate Relationship

I’m not a Jets fan, but I ended up being a Rex Ryan fan and his New York departure needs a proper goodbye.

I got my wish: Tom Coughlin will be the Giants’ head coach in 2015. I think the final few weeks of the season showed that the Giants’ 6-10 season was more of a product of leading the league with players on injured reserve rather than Coughlin losing the ability to coach overnight. Even without a postseason appearance since 2011 and a postseason game since Super Bowl XLVI, Coughlin still has that and XLII on his resume and that should be enough to keep him around until he decides he longer wants to be. And with Ben McAdoo assisting in the best offensive season of Eli Manning’s career and an Odell Beckham Jr.-Victor Cruz receiving tandem next year, the Giants could be back to where they were three years ago at this time. Unfortunately, if you’re a Jets fan, the future isn’t as bright.

The team that tried to become the King of the City in 2009 and 2010 with back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances fired the man who got them there. Rex Ryan coached his final game as head coach of the Jets and general manager John Idzik watched his final game as the head of the front office on Sunday. Ryan was doomed from the start of the season when Idzik made him make Geno Smith the starting quarterback and when he decided to not spend $20 million that he’ll never get to spend. And Idzik was doomed from the second he went to the podium for the “We Suck, But We’re Trying Hard” press conference that will likely serve as the reason he is never leading a front office again.

I have written a lot of words about Rex Ryan since he became the head coach of the Jets and flip-flopped on whether I liked him or not more times than I have with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. He came to New York as a fat, loud-mouthed defensive coordinator, who called out Bill Belichick in his first days, eliminated his own team from the postseason before a run to the 2009 AFC Championship Game, gave us a memorable season Hard Knocks in the summer of 2010, embarrassed the Patriots at Gillette Stadium in the 2010 divisional round and then came a stop on third-and-6 away from having a chance to win 2010 AFC Championship Game. He leaves New York as a slimmed-down quieter version of himself, who hasn’t seen the playoffs since that 2010 AFC Championship Game and is 26-38 over the last four years.

After going back and forth on Rex Ryan’s personality and abilities, I settled on liking the outspoken Rex, who didn’t want his team to settle for being a “slapd-ck team” and just wanted to eat a snack. The Jets might always be “the same old Jets” but even for a Giants fan like myself, who enjoys watching a good Jets loss, Rex gave outsiders a reason to watch for a few years and a reason to root for his Jets, like I did for that Jets-Patriots divisional game back in January 2011. So in honor, of Rex Ryan, I went back and found five things I wrote about him from August 2010 through January 2011 to look at his best season as Jets head coach.

Rise of the Jets – Aug. 12, 2010
There are going to be a lot of people that watch Hard Knocks simply to see what Rex Ryan is like outside of his comedic press conferences and aside from his extravagant Daily News and Post headlines. After watching Rex freely make fun of his in-laws in the opening minutes of the show, you just knew he was going to make the most of this opportunity to have a camera and censor-free microphone in front of him for training camp.

In the show, Rex Ryan appears to be an actor rather than an amusing and overweight NFL coach. Some of his lines and actions seem a little over the top and rehearsed, the same way that the cast of the Jersey Shore now plays up their personas to fulfill the roles of the celebrities they have become rather than be themselves like they were in the first season when the show gained popularity. (Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to watch Jersey Shore no matter how fake the cast becomes, just like I would watch Hard Knocks even if Rex Ryan were reading off cue cards.)

I think the pre-camp meeting was the best example of Rex being a head coach that knows there is a camera recording him. Rex made it clear that he wants his team to lead the league in the wins, but it was almost as if he was trying force every last swear word he could into this scene, so that fans would come away from Hard Knocks and say, “Wow, Rex Ryan is a badass.” But if you take away Ryan’s HBO vocabulary from that meeting, it definitely wouldn’t have passed through the final cut. A power point presentation on Day 1 of camp for NFL players? What player would pay attention to that? It was almost as if someone recorded the first day of class from each semester of college when the professor would just stand there and read the syllabus word for word before you letting you go early. Not exactly captivating TV without Rex trying to break the South Park movie’s record for most swears in one scene.

Rex has reached a point in my life that not many other people can achieve: the point where I could watch Rex Ryan do just about anything. It’s such an elite club that I can’t even think of another person on this list. Whether it’s trying to drop 37 F-bombs before taking a breath, wearing Chuck Taylor shoes given his body type, eating a lunch big enough for a family of four at Cafe Ryan, throwing footballs, punting footballs or just standing around making small talk, there isn’t anything Rex Ryan can’t do that wouldn’t be compelling. I only wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likeable as Rex Ryan.

Rex will never have trouble finding a job in the football world, which is disappointing, because the man could carry his own reality show. And like a lot of other people, I would watch every second of it.

A Reality Check – Dec. 7, 2010
I didn’t like Rex Ryan at first, then he grew on me and I even wished Tom Coughlin was a little like him when I said, “I only wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likeable as Rex Ryan.” Actually I wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likable as anyone, but I was wrong to think that Coughlin should change his ways to be more like Ryan. After my 180 on Rex, I have done other 180, and now a complete 360 and I am back to my initial stance of not being a fan of Rex Ryan anymore.

There are few, if any, press conferences in sports as entertaining as Rex Ryan’s, but even those are getting old. In two seasons, Rex Ryan has become what The Office has become for me over seven seasons — a show that I was skeptical about at first, and then grew to love before becoming skeptical again.

One day Rex is saying that the Jets are the team to beat and the next he is saying that he knew the AFC East would run through New England. I understand that you have to take a grain of salt with whatever Rex says, but it’s become ridiculous. He wants to come off as this cocky, arrogant and pompous winner when the Jets are winning close games against barely competent teams. And after losses, he becomes an apologetic, sincere and humble the next. It’s an odd act that has made him a favorite of Jets fan, but an immature and unprepared clown to outsiders.

Tom Coughlin might not have a comedic personality or a limit to the amount of snacks he can eat in a day or a twin brother that looks like Sean Connery’s character John Mason at the beginning of The Rock, but he has beaten Bill Belichick in a big game (the biggest of games), and at least with Tom Coughlin you know what you’re getting, whether you like it or not. Oddly enough, I’m thankful that Tom Coughlin is the way he is.

Year in Review, Part 1 – Dec. 29, 2010
I’m not sure who Rex Ryan wants to be. One day he wants to be an NFL coach and the next day he wants to be friends with the players and a class clown with the media. So far his team has underachieved by the standards he set in Hard Knocks (leading the league in wins), but you would never know that from the way he conducts himself.

I was still on the fence about whether or not I liked Rex Ryan and then on Sunday when he was giving his press conference and found out in the middle of it that the Jets made the playoffs because the Jaguars lost, and he started acting like the Jets had decided their own fate with a convincing win, well it was then that I finally decided Rex isn’t for me.

I don’t agree with everything that Bill Belichick does or how he handles the media, but I get why he acts that way, and at least he is consistent. He gave this interview outside the locker room after losing to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, and had the Patriots won, his postgame interview probably would have been very similar.

Call him smug, or arrogant or pompous, but call him consistent. That is all I ask of Rex. Be consistent. Find a personality and stick with it. Either be an authority figure or a coach that is buddy-buddy with the players. Don’t try to be both because you can’t be both.

A Giants Fan for Jets – Jan. 14, 2011
I once saw Dave Attell do stand-up and the show started at midnight, and Dave had already done two shows that night. Saying he was drunk would be like saying Marisa Miller is good looking. But as the show went on and on and a waiter kept delivering drinks to Dave, the show only got better and better. I’m sure the people at the 8:00 show got a good show, but it was definitely not as good as the people who went to the 10:00 show, and their show definitely was not as good the show that I saw at midnight. This is what’s happening with Rex Ryan.

Rex started off talking trash on the first episode of Hard Knocks, it got better once the regular season started and then once the Jets began to play important games. Then the playoffs started and he began to call out anyone that walked by him leading up to this game where he has used material on Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Just think about some of the crazy things that have come out of Rex’s mouth and then think about this: he has NEVER been the head coach for a team in the Super Bowl. Imagine Rex Ryan with two weeks between the AFC Championship (if the Jets can get there) and the Super Bowl? I think only a two-week marathon of The Office or Friday Night Lights could keep me as entertained.

And the Winner Is … – Jan. 19, 2011
On Sunday night, CBS ran a piece on 60 Minutes about Billy Walters, a sports gambler in Nevada that bets hundreds of thousands of dollars on football and basketball games and won $3.5 million on the Saints in last year’s Super Bowl.

I take back anything bad I have said about Rex Ryan. He’s a hero. And I’m not joking when I say that. He’s the man.

When Rex ran into the end zone to celebrate Shonn Greene’s touchdown with the players, he won me over. For a minute I thought Rex was the one that scored the touchdown and seeing the players celebrating with him and letting him be one of the guys for that moment made you realize that when Bart Scott says he would “die for Rex Ryan” that he probably isn’t the only one on the Jets that would.

When I look at my team, the Giants, I see a team that if Tom Coughlin was fired tomorrow, the players would give remarks like, “football is a business” or “it’s not Tom’s fault” when really the majority of the team probably wouldn’t care and would likely be happy. (And Antrel Rolle verified this on Tuesday.) If Rex were fired, I could see the Jets threatening to not show up and play. That’s the vibe you get from this Jets “team” and it’s something you don’t get from the Giants.

The Jets are Rex Ryan. The entire team has bought into his trash talking system, and during Hard Knocks when he kept reiterating, “Play Like A Jet” I thought, “What is wrong with this guy?” Playing like a Jet meant not winning championships. But what Rex meant was that “Playing Like A Jet” meant “Playing Like A Jet From When I Took Over This Team.” Nothing with the Jets before Rex Ryan matters and like he said, “Same old Jets going to the AFC Championship for the second year in a row.”