The Beauty and Transcendence of Jets Coach Rex Ryan

The sports world is full of bland, media-friendly stiffs. The most highly praised athletes and coaches are generally by-the-book we-play-the-games-one-game-at-time cliche machines who studiously avoid pissing anyone off. Heroes are supposed to be role models and vice versa. NFL head coaches especially are supposed to be the shining standard of vaguely defined values. Player's follow their coach's lead, like ducklings follow their mother, and all the credit and blame is laid at the feet of these workaholic leaders of men. That's why there's a lot of turnover in coaching gigs: A few losses and a few personality quirks are enough to convince fans and front offices that the guy's a schmuck. All this makes Rex Ryan an extremely rare breed of coach.

The New York Jets are the only sports team that's ever made me cry. In 1998, after Vinnie Testaverde was rightly outdueled by John Elway in the AFC Championship game, I sat in a room I shared with my two brothers, buried my face in a flannel pillow, and sobbed big tears that soaked through the fabric. From then on, sports never hurt me again. I was impervious to the great disappointing path that so many teams lead their fans down. I felt like a sports superhero who had discovered a secret ooze in a dusty warehouse.

Rex Ryan changed that. He brought me back to the high and lows of sports fandom. The throwing of the remote, cursing at the dog, throwing the team shirt into the corner. And I love him for that. I love him like you love the father who picks you up from the police station after you got busted at a high school party, looks at you, smiles, and makes some quip about mowing the lawn for the next month.

For all his faults, Ryan is a goofy, lovable oaf. He's that rare sports personality who doesn't play by the NFL's unwritten rules about how to present oneself in public, rules that include things like "don't constantly yell swears on Hard Knocks" and "maybe your wife shouldn't make foot fetish videos." Decorum never mattered for Ryan, who desperately wanted to be an NFL head coach after being hailed as a defensive mastermind on some truly talented Baltimore Ravens teams.

He came to New York, to a fan base and franchise that's always felt like the second fiddle to the Giants and made Jets fans who didn't buy into a "Mangenius" proud to call themselves a fans once again. He took a team made out of shoelaces, bubble gum, and a quarterback whose career highlight very well might wind up being fumbling on a literal butt to two AFC Championship games. He did so loudly and abrasively and it was beautiful.

"We want to be known as the most physical football team in the NFL," Ryan said at his introductory press conference. "The players will have each other's backs, and if you take a swipe at one of ours, we'll take a swipe at two of yours."

Success in sports is ephemeral, but Ryan has been able to hold onto a job through thick and thin, despite what you might call "controversies": the time he flipped off a Dolphins fan at an MMA event, to the foot videos, to the sexy tattoo of his wife, the list goes on. His flaws don't matter, though—we have failings, just like he does. More importantly, he lived and died with games like we did. On Monday, listening to his sports talk radio spots after losses, it sounded like he was coming from the vet to tell his children they had to put the dog to sleep. After wins, you could see his smile through the radio.

With the NFL season ready to kick off in a month and summer training camps in full swing, Ryan, as we know and love him, is back. He's loud again, he's talking up his team, and he's ours—for better or worse.

"I'm going to be honest with you," he told the media in May. "I'm not so sure there would be too many people that want to play us. And that's the truth." He's bragging about his team again, the way a proud father would.

Despite the constant media buzz around the team, he always did what he thought was best, and he's usually right—he's built a solid defense, didn't let Tim Tebow throw the ball, last year he gave Geno Smith lots of time to learn even though the quarterback struggled at times.

If the Jets falter, this could be the end of Ryan rocking the company windbreaker on the sidelines. It would be the end of that "don't count us out attitude," that overwhelming hubris. The Jets are exactly like the state in which they play: New Jersey. You'll never meet someone who praises New Jersey and isn't from New Jersey. The franchise is a drive down routes 1 and 9: It's not pretty, but it's ours and it's all we have. And dammit if we're not proud of our auto parts stores, depots of various sorts, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. And there's no doubt Rex Ryan is ours too.

Follow Patrick Kearns on Twitter.