When John Harbaugh became head coach of the Ravens, he inherited defensive coordinator Rex Ryan. Eighteen years later, Harbaugh could be bringing Ryan in.
Via Michael McCarthy of FrontOfficeSports.com, Harbaugh didn’t dismiss the possibility of hiring Ryan to serve as the Giants’ defensive coordinator.
“Why not?” Harbaugh said in an appearance on WFAN. “Could you imagine Rex coming back in here? I’m not ruling anything out. A guy like Rex, he’s around the game, he knows the game. He’s going to have to get updated a little bit with some of the scheme stuff, but I’ll tell you, no one calls a better game than Rex Ryan.”
After one year with Harbaugh, Ryan became the head coach of the Jets, where he worked from 2009 through 2014. He then coached the Bills in 2015 and 2016. He has spent the last 10 years at ESPN.
Two years ago, Ryan emerged as a candidate for the defensive coordinator job in Dallas. He claimed that he would have gotten the job over Mike Zimmer, if owner/G.M. Jerry Jones hadn’t lowballed him.
Ryan’s defense creates chaos. And even though the game has indeed changed since he last coached, it’s still 11-on-11 football. The goal of any defense is to deploy its players in a way that short circuits the play that the offense has called. Ryan was able to do that well enough to earn two head-coaching jobs.
And while some head coaches may be intimidated by Ryan’s triple-XL personality, John Harbaugh won’t be. Harbaugh, who was never an offensive or defensive coordinator, will want to delegate those assignments to coaches he can trust to do the job well. It already worked between Harbaugh and Ryan in 2008, culminating in an appearance in the AFC Championship in their only year together.
Could it work again? As Harbaugh said, “Why not?”
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