Rex Ryan blasts former Chargers head coach

Rex Ryan can’t help himself.

When everyone else has already moved on, the former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach turned ESPN NFL analyst has to take potshots. Ryan has no problem taking underhanded shots at Brandon Staley, who ultimately paid for his shortcomings as a head coach in this league—just like Ryan did.

The Los Angeles Chargers are in their Jim Harbaugh era, but rather than moving forward, Ryan keeps backing the bus over Staley. For some reason, one of his criticisms of the San Francisco 49ers assistant head coach is that he was a Division III defensive coordinator. And instead of making that a testament to hard work, perseverance, and one of the most brilliant defensive minds in the game (now-Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio) hiring him in Chicago, Ryan has turned it into an insult.

Before Monday’s incident on Get Up , Ryan essentially told Staley to go back to where he came from.

“I think he should go back to Division III football where he belongs,” Ryan said last November. “Look, this guy. Look at his resume, man. I mean, I’m sorry. He spent one year coordinating a team that my wife could coach with Aaron Donald and all those guys. Stop it. And trust me, she’d do a hell of a lot better job than this guy’s doing with his defense. They’re the second-highest payroll in the National Football League, and they’re the second-worst. Like, this team is atrocious.”

Like we said before, Staley paid the price. He was fired after going 24-25 in three seasons as the Chargers head coach, only to be replaced by Harbaugh in the offseason. With Harbaugh winning his first game back in the NFL in a 22-10 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 1, Ryan weirdly makes it a referendum on Staley.

“They threw out a guy that’s a Division III coach, now they can play defense,” Ryan said.

That drew some laughter from his fellow panel members on Get Up , but it was more cringe-worthy than anything.

Ryan’s insistence on making Staley the villain in this scenario only reflects poorly on himself. Was Staley Head Coach of the Year material during his three years in Los Angeles? Absolutely not, but there’s been worse head coaches to grace the sideline(s).

That’s not intended as a shot at Ryan, who was a fine head coach in his own right, but for someone who hired his buddies (Jeff Weeks) and was the son of the greatest defensive coach of all time in Buddy Ryan, you think he’d have a little more grace for those who weren’t born on the NFL equivalent of second base.

As pointed out by Coach Don Casey in Awful Announcing’s quote tweets on X (formerly Twitter), the same Ryan who’s critical of a Division III coach in Staley was once an FCS defensive coordinator himself. Not that FCS and DIII are the same, but Ryan parlayed a 3-8 season at Morehead State, where his defense gave up nearly 400 yards per game, into a job in the NFL as the linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals, where his father was the head coach.

Continuing to dunk on a former DIII coach and thinking that it’s a good insult comes off as petty at best and just plain ignorant at worst. He can keep telling Staley to go back to where he came from all he wants, but the fact of the matter is that Fangio, Sean McVay, and Kyle Shanahan all believe he’s good enough to coach at the NFL level.

You might want to take their word(s) over Ryan’s.

And suppose you wonder why Ryan is still at ESPN, though he has reportedly interviewed for coaching positions ; in the same clip where he praises ground-and-pound offenses, he made a contradictory statement: “Even if they only had one first down in the first half.”

That’s beside the point, but it just shows why his critique of Staley is ironic. And guess what? Staley deserves plenty of criticism. His tenure in Los Angeles was brutal, especially when the defense fell apart. There are plenty of avenues to pick from in which you can criticize him, and Ryan chooses to make fun of the fact that he worked his way up the ranks from Division III to the NFL. That’s a story out of a Disney movie, not one that you try to use as an insult.

And regardless of Ryan’s barbs, Staley will certainly have opportunities to prove himself again in the NFL.

[ Get Up ]

The post Rex Ryan takes ‘Division III’ shot at former Chargers coach Brandon Staley appeared first on Awful Announcing .