Sorry Norv but Rex May Have Been Right

Back in October as Rex Ryan’s New York Jets were preparing to face off against the San Diego Chargers, Ryan made a statement to the press that he would probably have a “couple of rings” by now if he had inherited the talent that Norv Turner had when Turner was hired as San Diego’s coach. Rex quickly retracted the statement then promptly coached his team to a victory over the Turner-led Chargers.

Now many people will point to Rex Ryan’s Super Bowl “predictions” over the past couple of years and easily dismiss anything he has to say about the subject but watching the San Diego Chargers’ six-game meltdown has to make you wonder; could Ryan have done it better? Or better yet, could a Ryan do it better?

Norv Turner is on his way out as head coach of the Chargers.It’s inevitable and there really isn’t anything he can do at his point to keep his job short of black-mailing his team’s owner with some incriminating photos or something.  Regardless of what his team does the rest of the season they are virtually out of the playoff race and have underachieved on both sides of the ball all season long.

But back to my question, could a Ryan do it better? I only ask because although Rex Ryan is not in the running for the Chargers’ soon-to-be-open coaching position, there is speculation that his brother Rob Ryan might be. Rob did a great job with the Cleveland Browns’ defense while he was there and has the Dallas Cowboys’ defense playing well this year. The Cowboys were allowing over 27 points-per-game last season and are now allowing just over 20.

The Chargers on the other hand are trending the other direction. They were a top ten scoring defense last season but are now in the lower third of the league in that category. With five games left to play, the Cowboys’ defense has registered 30 sacks and is only five sacks off their sack total from last season while the Chargers (19 sacks) have yet to register even half of their sack total from last year (47). 

Offense is where Norv Turner lays his hat though and sadly the Chargers have seen a decline there also. San Diego had the number one offense in the league last season and is ranked seventh this year. While the drop in total offense may not be that bad, the drop in offensive scoring is. They went from being the second best scoring team last year scoring 27.6 points-per-game and have fallen all the way down to 17^th this season.

This team is still very talented though which was the basis of Rex’s argument. Take Philip Rivers for example. Although Rivers has struggled this season, I don’t think there is any coach in the league including Rex who would take Mark Sanchez over him.

There are plenty of teams that would prefer to have the talent that the Chargers have at some of their other positions also. Too bad we can’t go back in time to 2007 when Rex was a candidate to replace Marty Schottenheimer and see for ourselves but maybe we will get the chance to see what Rex’s twin, Rob can do next season. 

Roosevelt Hall is an NFL Blogger for The Sport Mentalist and also writes for both The Penalty Flag and Outside The Redzone. He can be contacted at RHall_TPFB@Yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @Sportmentalist.