Was the risk okay for the position?

So was it the right thing to do considering the circumstances? Did it need clearance? Let’s take a closer look and this scenario . . .

 

Did Rex Ryan inform Woody Johnson he intended on running with the bull in Pamplona?

“You know what? I never asked,” Ryan told the New York Post.. “This is my personal life, and I want to do something with my family, I’m going to do it.”

As Voltaire said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Let’s be honest, being an NFL head coach is a really big deal. There are only 32 of them. It’s a chance to be a head coach in the most popular sport in the country, by far.

It’s a very high profile job.

So that begs the question, when you have one of these jobs, do just say, “I’m going to do whaever I want in my personal life?”

Like making a controversial video, and putting it on the internet, causing a national stir that the organization has to do major spin control on?

Or running with the bulls, and risking this happening –

“The penultimate bull run of Spain’s San Fermin festival left at least 23 people injured, when thrill-seekers fleeing the beasts were crushed at the narrow entrance to the bullring, officials said. Two of the injuries were gorings,” wrote the AP from Spain. “As the huge animals thundered into the entrance of the tunnel, they were blocked by a mound of dozens of people who had fallen and were piled on top of one other.

“One bull that had fallen before the entrance got up and charged into the clogged passageway. Two steers jumped over the pile of people as they began to get up and flee.

“One runner, a 19-year-old Spaniard from Vitoria city, was seriously injured when his thorax was crushed at the bull ring entrance. An Irish citizen also suffered asphyxia.”

I will say this, Rex is lucky his boss is Woody Johnson, a very forgiving man, who was a little bit of wild man in his younger days, according to Jerry Oppenheimer, author of “Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty”

Johnson fell off a bridge after drinking too much while in college.

“Oh, my God, who knows what we had, but yes, we were drinking alcohol,” Johnson’s college girlfriend Diane Vonderahe said in the book. “He had been drinking, was urinating … and took a step or two backward. It was like an 18-foot drop, and (Johnson) just stepped off of it,”

The book states that the accident left Johnson with a “broken his back and was virtually paralyzed. He underwent surgery and was in intensive care for three or four months.”

So perhaps his own past is why Johnson is so forgiving of Rex.

And Johnson might have been the only owner willing to hire Rex to be his head coach.

He got a number of interviews, but teams chose to go in a different direction, including the Baltimore Ravens, where Rex was a successful defensive coordinator.

Baltimore owner Steve Bisciotti didn’t feel Rex was the right coach for him, and instead hired the Philadelphia Eagles special teams’ coach, John Harbaugh, to be his head coach. Rex was pissed – another team’s special team’s coach over him?

Bisciotti is a self-made billionaire, a pretty smart guy, and just didn’t feel Rex was right coach for his team.

I heard a couple of reasons for Bisciotti’s decision – one was his weight. Remember, Rex was 350 at the time (now he’s 230 thanks to the lap-band and a better diet), and also, I hear Bisciotti wasn’t thrilled with Rex as a disciplinarian with his defensive players.

Obviously the weight is a moot point now, but the discipline issue is still something that lingers over Rex; he gets mixed reviews in this area. Let’s how he handles this year team, let’s see how he handles Santonio Holmes, a player he has had issues with.

But I will say this in closing, while some owners wanted nothing to do with Rex as a head coach, all it takes is one to fall in love with you, much like marriage.

And Woody loves Rex as a coach.

And is clearly willing to put up with his shenanigans.

But with bad season this year, even Woody’s love will likely fade.

July 21

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