Let Rex Ryan serve as your daily reminder that you should never count your chickens before they hatch.
Earlier this week, the Bills head coach, known as much for his brash, outspoken personality as he is for his defensive brilliance, expressed regret for his preseason guarantee that the team would make the playoffs.
“I think we got a great thing going here. We just didn’t produce the wins I thought we would,” said Ryan to WGR 550 radio in Buffalo per ESPN. “The thing that kind of gives this team a black eye when we’re looking at it, is that I let my mouth get ahead of everything. And I think if I would have come in there and just said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna compete,’ and do all that stuff, maybe we wouldn’t have such a bad feeling about this team.
“This team doesn’t deserve that,” the 53-year-old Ryan continued. “This team has fought, and they’ve played extremely hard. We’ve had a lot of things happen this year where we’ve felt, where we’ve came up short. There’s no question about it. But I think I could have handled it differently.”
Ryan’s hubris was indeed his ultimate downfall with the Bills at 7-8 on the season and Ryan’s hallowed defense ranking just 20th in the NFL in total yards allowed (per ESPN). They were eliminated from postseason contention with a 35-25 loss to the Redskins in Week 15. While the Bills could still potentially play spoilers to the Jets’ playoff hopes in Week 17, it’s become abundantly clear that Ryan, who has engaged in more than his fair share of trash talk and shenanigans this year, was served some humble pie at the dinner table this holiday season.
At least Ryan is hinting that he’s making like Scrooge and seeing the errors in his ways. But knowing Ryan, he’ll probably revert back to his old antics within a few months.
H/T NFL
