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It’s nice to be forgiving, but sometimes if you are too forgiving, or turn the other cheek with regularity, it can get in the way of being a top-shelf leader.
You all know plenty about “PlaybookGate,” as some are calling it now.
Mike Pettine told Greg Bedard of MMBQ.com, that Rex Ryan gave a playbook to Nick Saban, and he suspects the Alabama coach gave it to his friend Bill Belichick.
This story made Ryan look pretty bad.
And like I mentioned the other day, it helped Pettine, who does an amazing job of currying favor with reporters, local and national, by giving them scoops. I’m not being sarcastic. No matter who sleazy this sounds, it’s a great strategy in his day and age to keep the media in your corner.
But you know what, I don’t think this story will impact Rex’s relationship with Pettine one iota.
I was at Rex’s press conference the other day when he seemed to feign outrage at Pettine.
I think they are still great friends.
This is the way Rex rolls.
“Rex doesn’t hold grudges,” one Jets official told me a while back.
Many people would consider this an admirable trait.
And on some level it is.
But I think at times it hurts him as head coach.
Like when he gave that famous speech at Hofstra, where he ripped the team, and then said, “Let’s get a G-D snack.”
That last line kind of washed out the tough part of his speech.
In the first press conference after the MMQB story came out, Ryan was asked about Pettine, and check out his answer. It’s like nothing happened.
“Obviously, what I think of Mike, I think the world of him. I’m proud of the fact that he’s in the spot he’s in now. I think he’s earned it. He was a great coach and I’ve told you that guys for years. So, I was really proud of him,” Ryan said.
Really proud of man who just made you look like a fool nationally, saying you handed out playbooks like candy?
Is this taking “not holding a grudge,” to a ridiculous level? This kind of quote right after the story broke?
And he was asked by a reporter if he will speak to Pettine about this?
“I don’t need to,” Ryan said.
That is the same answer he gave after the Dennis Thurman incident at the Morristown bar that made TMZ.
He was asked then if he will speak to Thurman.
“I don’t need to,” Ryan said.
I don’t know how many of you out there are coaches or have businesses with people under you.
But do you think this is the way to lead?
To turn the other cheek.
It’s like when Santonio Holmes was a cancer in the locker room in 2011, and the season ended with him getting tossed from the huddle in Miami.
Rex claimed he didn’t know what was going on in the locker room.
I knew and I’m a freakin reporter, and he didn’t?
I just don’t think Rex’s “see and hear no evil” approach helps him as a head coach?
I think he’s got a lot going for him as a coach. He’s a defensive genius and most players play hard for him because they love the man.
But to talk about how proud you are of Pettine after that MMQB story, is a world that I just don’t understand.
And like I said, I doubt that Bedard story will impact the Pettine/Ryan relationship at all.
To me, that is just bizarre.
And another example of “loyalty to the point of defiance.”
Sometimes you need to put your foot down.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if Pettine did that to me, at least for a while, I might actually stop speaking to him.
Or at least, chill out with the with talk about how proud you are of him, for the time being.
June 23, 2014
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