Rex Ryan promises to 'build a bully' in Buffalo

After being announced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills, former Jets coach Rex Ryan claims he can turn the perennial AFC East bottom-dweller into a "bully."

|
Bill Wippert/AP
Rex Ryan, left, addresses the media alongside general manager Doug Whaley, right, during an NFL football news conference where he was introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015, in Orchard Park, N.Y.

Rex Ryan was as brash and outspoken as ever on Wednesday, promising to "build a bully" of a team and end the Buffalo Bills' 15-year playoff drought after being introduced as the team's head coach.

The Bills own the National Football League's longest active playoff drought but Ryan, in bullish mood, guaranteed that his new team will return to the postseason and chase a maiden Super Bowl title.

As he tapped his microphone at the start of his introductory news conference, Ryan said: "Is this thing on? Because it's getting ready to be on."

He then outlined his pledge to Bills supporters, having been named on Monday as the team's head coach in place of Doug Marrone, who abruptly stepped down after Buffalo went 9-7 in the 2014 season.

"I'm not going to let our fans down," said Ryan, who is known as a defensive specialist. "I'm not going to do that. I know it's been 15 years since the Bills made the playoffs.

"Well, get ready man. We're going. The guarantee? Hey, am I going to guarantee a Super Bowl? I tell you what I will do, I will guarantee the pursuit of it. We want to bring a championship to Buffalo."

Ryan, 52, spent the last six seasons as head coach of the AFC East division rival Jets, a team he lead to the penultimate round of the NFL playoffs in his first two years in charge.

But he was unable to lead the Jets to a winning record in each of the last four campaigns and was fired last month after the team finished near the bottom of the league standings with a 4-12 record. He had a 46-50 regular season record in New York.

With the Bills, he inherits a defense that was fourth-best in the league last season in yards allowed and yielded three Pro Bowl linemen.

"Fourth in the league was probably a little disappointing," said Ryan, an outspoken coach with a lively personality. "I know we'll lead the league in defense.

"We're going into every game expecting to win, regardless of who we play. We expect to play great defense but we want to win and we don't care what it looks like. We are going to build a bully and we're gonna see if you want to play it for 60 minutes.

"Are we going to do 'ground and pound'? Yeah. You're darn right we are. Are we going to throw it? Yeah, we got Sammy Watkins outside, why wouldn't we throw it?"

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Rex Ryan promises to 'build a bully' in Buffalo
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0115/Rex-Ryan-promises-to-build-a-bully-in-Buffalo
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe