I hope he brings his entire defensive staff from Baltimore with him to New York. ...maybe he can steal his brother away from Cleveland - but he'd have to name him assistant head coach, which wouldn't be a problem.
Hopefully he signs soon. As for the players. Well I look at it like this. You got guys like Revis, Rhodes, Harris, Pace, and Jenkins who are all good defensive players at what they do. Then you got a guy like Gholston who hopefully turns into a player. Maybe Ryan uses him better then Mangini did? Then you gotta figure that he is going to bring guys in that fit his system and style of play. As for big names well the Ravens have 3 LB's that are going to hit the market. Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, and Bart Scott. If Favre retires and contracts like Barton come off the books and you throw in some cuts the Jets are not in bad shape cap wise. Maybe they could try and pry one of those guys away. Then you got the draft coming up as well. It's not going to be a quick fix or an overnight thing but in time he should be able to get players that can play his system.
I think its reasonable to ask the question whether Ryan's success in Baltimore had more to do with the cast than the scheme. Not to say that the Jets lack talent, but the pieces the Jets have aren't really similar to what the Ravens have in many cases. The main thing being linebackers, Calvin Pace is a solid player but not as flashy off the edge as the Ravens LBs tend to be. Harris is obviously not similar at all to Ray Lewis, but then, for a long time they had Ed Hartwell in next to Lewis, and he was even more of a stiff, downhill, run-stuffing type LBer than Harris. The Ravens have always had McAllister as their lockdown corner, and while he was one of the top players at the position for a good while, I think you can make an argument that Revis is about as good already as McAllister ever was, so weve got that. Rhodes is something of a different style of safety than Reed, but he's talented enough that Ryan should be able to do plenty with him; same goes for Jenkins as compared to Ngata. DE is something of a concern, but no more than it was if Mangini stayed, Ellis will continue to be a solid and sometimes excellent player, and the revolving door across from him will still need to be fixed. Im not even going to get into comparing Suggs and Gholston, nothing we saw from him this season gives me any hope that hell ever be any use to anybody (watching him flounder after Cutler that one play in the Denver game made a pretty strong impression on me) but if Gholston is ever going to amount to anything, it seems to be the case that he needs somebody to give him a kick in the ass to get there. Mangini's classroom attitude is great with players who are self-motivated, same as his old buddy Belichick. Gholston doesnt seem to be that type, so a coach who didn't draft him and likes to scream could be good for his career. One thing thats been tossed around a bit, and that I think could be very likely, is the possibility of Vilma coming back to the Jets. Hes apparently not resigning with the Saints, he has a history here, left with no acrimony, and Ryan's defense is likely to need a player with pretty much his exact skillset, given that hes a Ray Lewis clone and the Ravens defense has always been built around Ray's pursuit abilities. It'd be wierd, but I dont think either the team or the player would have a problem with it. Plus it seems unlikely that his salary demands would be too high, hes at something of a low point in his career these days. I for one would be thrilled to see him back, and in a system that would let him be the player it looked like hed grow into when he first entered the league. What Im more worried about at this point, is if Schottenheimer ends up splitting, what the heck do we do offensively. I don't think he will, hes got no shot at landing a HC spot this year, and if he wants to stay on the short list in the coming years, hes got a better shot of doing that if he stays here with the players and staff hes spent the last three years with than if he starts over from scratch somewhere else. But if he does, we could be in a serious lurch, and the absolute last thing we need is for Ryan to end up promoting some schmoe from Baltimore, their offense is and has been the worst around for ages now. All in all Im thrilled with the hire, even though I personally would have preferred to see Mangini get another year. Instead of doing our best Patriots impression to try to beat them, we bring in somebody with a completely different, but equally proven, defensive philosophy. Super bowls are nice, but more importantly, I want to see this team be consistently better than the Patriots for a couple years before Belichick and Brady retire; I want to see them have to deal with an in-division losing streak, a losing record or two, spend a few years looking up at the Jets. Having a defense like the Ravens have had the last ten years would be a nice step in the right direction.
2 good points! (1) The Ravens offense can stay in Balt, I will stick with what we have, though it needs some work. (2) Beating up the neighborhood bully sounds good to me!
