Rex Ryan should be back to talking Super Bowl after win follows emotional speech to Jets players

By Gary Myers
The Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com
Monday, December 20th 2010, 4:00 AM

PITTSBURGH - Rex Ryan's emotional speech Saturday night lasted for only 10 minutes and the players lost count of how many f-bombs he dropped as he stood before them in the team hotel trying to save a season that had gone horribly wrong.

And if Ben Roethlisberger had completed either of his point-blank darts into the end zone in the final nine seconds, a concession speech by Ryan on a lost season would have been an appropriate followup. That's the funny thing about these speeches - players only talk about them when they win.

"His main message was: When are we going to really commit to being great," guard Brandon Moore said.

The Jets saved their season and restored their pride by beating the Steelers, surviving 16-degree wind chill, some swirling snow and Big Ben throwing twice into the end zone from the 10-yard line. It was the first time the Jets had ever won in Pittsburgh - they had been 0-7 - and it was their first quality victory since beating the Patriots in the second week of the season.

The 22-17 victory will almost certainly prevent them from joining the 1993 Dolphins, who, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, are the only ones since the six-playoff teams per conference format was adopted in 1990 to go from 9-2 to out of the playoffs. The 10-4 Jets have a two-game lead in the wild-card race with two games to play.

After the humiliation of the last two weeks - the blowout loss to the Patriots, the Tripgate loss to the Dolphins - Ryan was desperate. Burying the football didn't work. The Sal Alosi Affair was an embarrassment. The season was slipping away.

So, Ryan went right for his players hearts. Ryan is good with his X's and O's, his game management needs some work, but his strength is being able to push the right buttons. His mouth is his best asset. He called players out. He challenged them. He appealed to their competitiveness.

He didn't break down and cry in front of them like he did last year. But he was fired up.

"A tear didn't drop," Darrelle Revis said. "But his eyes were watery."

Ryan had been subdued since the 45-3 beatdown by the Patriots two weeks ago. Then last week they lost to the Dolphins, an inferior team, and failed to score a touchdown for the second week in a row. The season was in the home stretch and his team was running out of gas.

The Alosi saga focused attention on Ryan. Did he know about the wall Alosi constructed? He said no, but nobody seemed to believe him. And if Alosi indeed acted on his own, was that another indication Ryan was running too loose a ship?

If his team was falling apart, then Ryan tried to put it back together Saturday night.

"The emotional part of it is what athletes and players look at," LaDainian Tomlinson said. "Can my coach get me to feel something? I guarantee you every guy in the room felt something. We felt Rex's passion. Felt how bad he wanted it. He's not even playing. But when he feels like that, you got to play your butt off."

He called out the offensive linemen. Told them they needed to protect Mark Sanchez and get the running game going. Sanchez was sacked just once and the Jets ran for 106 yards, which were 46 more than Pittsburgh's No. 1 rush defense was allowing this season.

The Jets were running out of games. Ryan appealed to their pride. "It was a sense of what are you waiting for?" LT said.

Can you imagine if the Giants and Jets both lost with no time left on the clock on the same day? It almost happened. Ryan's supposed shutdown defense, trying to protect a 22-17 lead when the Steelers got the ball at their own 8 with 2:08 remaining, was bending and breaking all the way to a first down at the Jets 10, allowing Roethlisberger to covert three third downs, one of them a third-and-24.

So, here was Big Ben with a second down at the Jets 10 with nine seconds left. Enough time for two shots into the end zone.

"Of course my stomach was turning upside down," Moore said.

"You don't know whether to be excited or throw up," tight end Dustin Keller said. "I was kind of in between both."

Ryan rushed three and dropped eight. "Plaster coverage," one Jet insider called the strategy. "Get to the nearest receiver you can find and stick to him."

Roethlisberger had so much time to throw, too much time to throw, but none of his receivers could get open. His first game-winning attempt was a bullet in the middle of the end zone near the end line. But tight end Matt Spaeth cut in front of wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders, ruining any chance of a completion. Ryan admired how Roethlisberger knew to get rid of the ball to leave himself time for one more play.

Big Ben's second attempt, again with so much time back there, was along the left sideline for Spaeth, but Marquice Cole knocked it away.

The Jets sideline erupted.

Ryan says the Jets will make the playoffs "one way or the other."

After being almost morose since the moment the Jets walked off the field in Foxborough two weeks ago, the chip on Ryan's shoulder returned after the game.

"You know, Same Old Jets, came down to Pittsburgh, got a win," he said.

Pretty soon, he will be back to predicting a Super Bowl victory.

gmyers@nydailynews.com