Rex Ryan injecting enthusiasm into Bills, WNY

Although Steve Tasker has remained close to the Buffalo Bills organization all these years following his retirement from the team, he did not have any insider information back in January when the Bills were looking to hire a new head coach.

But Tasker sure had a good idea whom they should hire, and when former teammate Thurman Thomas texted him one night to see if he had any thoughts on who the new man might be, Tasker shared what can now be viewed as a prophetic opinion.

"When everything came down in Buffalo and Doug Marrone opted out, I got a text from Thurman asking 'What are they gonna do?' " Tasker recalled. "And I said right then, 'I'm all about Rex Ryan.' He wasn't even on their radar yet, but I said he's the guy, he's the perfect fit here."

You see, in his job as an NFL analyst for CBS, Tasker was assigned to work three of the last four New York Jets games in 2014. Tasker and virtually everyone in the football world knew Ryan — on his way to a career-worst 4-12 record — would be fired at the end of the year. Yet through all the doom and gloom enveloping the Jets, Ryan's consummate professionalism, never-ending enthusiasm, and heartfelt commitment to his players impressed Tasker.

"The water was circling the drain in New York and he was awesome about the way he spoke about everybody in the organization," Tasker said. "He couldn't have been more complimentary about the organization and the opportunity they had given him, and my impression was, 'What a guy.' With his personality, the way he runs his show, the way the players play for him, the way he is in the locker room, the feedback I got from the New York players about what kind of guy he is, I just knew it would be a perfect fit here."

The Bills are about to embark on their 56th season of professional football when they take the field at St. John Fisher College for the start of training camp. Never have they had a coach who has generated the type of excitement Ryan has — before even coaching a game.

Plenty of personality

Ryan is a rock star. If you thought Mick Jagger cast a dynamic presence at Ralph Wilson Stadium a few weeks ago, wait until you get a load of Ryan on the sidelines come Sundays this fall.

In an impromptu Twitter poll conducted by this reporter asking fans to describe Ryan, here's a sampling of the responses: bombastic, energetic, refreshing, entertaining, charismatic, fun-loving, aggressive, contagious, confident, honest, classy, inspired, fearless, loquacious and passionate.

It took all of three minutes to elicit those responses, and it would be tough to argue with any of those descriptions. Ryan is a man of the people, and he has more media savvy than the last five Bills head coaches — Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey and Marrone — combined.

But best of all? He's a darn good football coach. In 20 seasons combined as head coaches in the NFL (13 with the Bills), Williams, Mularkey, Jauron, Gailey, and Marrone combined to win exactly zero playoff games. In his first two years with the Jets, Ryan won four playoff games (with Mark Sanchez at quarterback, no less) and reached two AFC Championship games. He also won a Super Bowl ring in 2000 when he was the defensive line coach in Baltimore, and he coached in a total of 11 playoff games during his 10-year tenure with the Ravens.

Sure, things fell apart in New York, but there were some extenuating circumstances, due mainly to a change in the leadership when John Idzik replaced Mike Tannenbaum as general manager in 2013.

Ryan was not Idzik's hire, and he had a different vision of how the Jets should be built. Several personnel decisions did not go Ryan's way, and after posting a 38-32 record (counting playoffs) in his four years with Tannenbaum, Ryan went 12-20 in the last two years with Idzik. By the way, Idzik was fired last year, too.

"It was disappointing, no doubt about it, but I was not disappointed with the effort, with the players, or with my coaches, I can tell you that much," Ryan said. "A lot of money was left on the table, a lot of things that I wish would have happened didn't happen. I hold no grudges or anything like that, but from a competitive standpoint, I wanted to compete. I kind of felt like it wasn't exactly lined up the way I wanted it to be."

When Ryan was let go, he immediately became the hottest coaching commodity on the market. The front-runner to hire Ryan seemed to be the Falcons, as Ryan and his wife, Michelle, had expressed an interest in moving to Atlanta. San Francisco was a viable possibility, as was Chicago, where Ryan's father, Buddy, remains an icon from his days as the Bears defensive coordinator.

Those franchises never had a chance as the Bills pounced like a tiger. The Pegulas flew Ryan down to their Boca Raton home on a Thursday, interviewed him all day, then invited him back Saturday and basically held him hostage on their yacht until a deal was reached. When Pegula offered $27.5 million over five years to coach a team that already had one of the NFL's finest defenses, plus room under the salary cap to upgrade the roster, it was done.

"When Marrone left, my agent hadn't been contacted by Buffalo," Ryan said. "I actually talked to my agent about reaching out to Buffalo to see if there was an interest there. I mean, of course I was interested in Buffalo, knowing what I knew about Buffalo, and when I met the Pegulas, I was over the top."

WNY whirlwind

In the intervening seven months, "over the top" would be one way to describe how Ryan has ingrained himself in western New York.

Ryan updated the infamous tattoo of his wife from Jets green to Bills blue; he tricked out his truck with the Bills logo; he sat down for beers with Jim Kelly and Thomas for a Sports Illustrated photo shoot; he wore Thomas' jersey to one of the NFL Scouting Combine workouts; he threw out the first pitch at a Buffalo Bisons game; he canceled an OTA workout and took the entire team to Kelly's celebrity golf tournament at Terry Hills in Batavia; he participated in LeSean McCoy's charity softball game at Frontier Field; and he jumped out of an airplane during the Niagara Airshow.

It would come as no surprise if he hauled out some circa-1990 red, white, and blue Bills' Zubaz pants one of these days at Fisher, or if he grabbed Billy Buffalo's costume and paraded through the crowd for a meet and greet.

"I'm not worried about trying to be someone I'm not," Ryan said. "This is who I am, how I operate, and I guess that's the way it is. This is the way I do it. It might not be the way this guy does it, or that guy. This is my way, and I don't care how anyone else does it."

When you get right down to it, Ryan had Bills fans at "We're going to build a bully." The surge of excitement about the coming season, which began that day when he was introduced as the new coach, hasn't subsided. The Bills have set a record for season ticket sales, and pretty soon there may be a waiting list for the first time in franchise history.



"You just had that sense that he would really fit well with our tremendous, loyal fan base," said team president Russ Brandon. "I think I underestimated a bit how much he has embraced the community. There is not one bone in Rex that's not authentic. Everything you see on the outside is what he is on the inside from an energy standpoint, a positive standpoint. He wants to be a part of the community and is a part of the community — it's not lip service. He doesn't do it because he thinks he has to, he does it because that's the kind of individual he is."

Bill Belichick, he's not. But Bills fans wouldn't mind some Belichickian results.

The Bills are 0-0 right now, so everything is wonderful. The honeymoon with Ryan is still in its embryonic stage, but Bills fans are a hardened bunch who have been tormented far too long by bad football. Buffalo is the only NFL franchise that has not qualified for the playoffs in the 21st century, an unfathomable run of futility. Ryan has been charged with ending the drought, and all of the good will he has built will dissipate quickly if the Bills are sitting home in January yet again.

Can he do it?

Kelly, for one, thinks he can.

"I like what I see," Kelly said. "I've been to practices before: They go through the motions, but watching how smooth everything went, and how enthusiastic everyone is now, I haven't seen that. Thurman feels the same way. You're reminded of how we prepared, not only physically but mentally; that's what I love to see."

Like Tasker, Kelly is all in on Ryan, and that's not something he has ever said about any of the Bills coaches since Marv Levy retired in 1997.

"If there's anybody in Buffalo who's not excited about this season, something's wrong. You haven't spent a lot of time here," Kelly said.

maiorana@democratandchronicle.com

Rex Ryan

Position: Head coach

Age: 52

College: Southwestern Oklahoma State

Coaching career: Eastern Kentucky (1987–1988, graduate asssistant); New Mexico Highlands (1989, assistant head coach/defensive coordinator); Morehead State (1990–1993, defensive coordinator); Arizona Cardinals (1994–1995, defensive line/linebackers); University of Cincinnati (1996–1997, defensive coordinator); Oklahoma University (1998, defensive coordinator); Kansas State (1999, defensive coordinator); Baltimore Ravens (1999–2008, defensive line (1999–2004), defensive coordinator (2005–2008), assistant head coach/D.C (2008); New York Jets (2009–2014, head coach).

The skinny: Ryan is the son of famed coach Buddy Ryan, the architect of the Chicago Bears Super Bowl-winning 46 defense, and also the former head coach of the Eagles and Cardinals. He is also the twin brother of Rob Ryan, a longtime defensive coach in the NFL and currently the coordinator with the Saints. Rex has a career head coaching record of 46-50, all with the Jets, and he is 4-2 in the playoffs, having lost two AFC Championship games. He is married and has two sons, one of which plays college football for Clemson.

Rex's record with the Jets

2009: 9-7 (2-1, playoffs)

2010: 11-5 (2-1, playoffs)

2011: 8-8

2012: 6-10

2013: 8-8

2014: 4-12

TOTAL: 46-50 (4-2 playoffs)