Say this from the top: If Ryan gets the Jets to the Super Bowl and gives this team and this fan base something real to be excited about, then he was the right guy. That’s pretty much all he’ll be judged on and all he should be judged on.

That said, I would have liked to see the Jets do a more complete search for a new coach. Woody Johnson and Mike Tanenbaum said they were going to do a “thorough” search for Eric Mangini’s replacement yet, for the most part, they only seriously looked at unproven head coaches. The only coach with legit experience they even interviewed was Bill Callahan.

That’s hardly seeing the whole picture. And while Ryan has been touted by many as the “polar opposite” of Mangini in terms of personality and style (both of which are good things), he’s really very similar to Mangini in terms of stature – the Jets hired Mangini as a hot, whiz-kid coordinator and that’s essentially what they’re getting in Ryan. Will it work this time?

Al Groh. Herm Edwards. Eric Mangini. Those are the last three Jets coaches, all of them stepping into the job having no NFL head coaching experience. Now comes Ryan.

Nothing against him, but I would have liked to see Woody Johnson make a sincere effort to get Bill Cowher. Or at least talked to Mike Shanahan. Or, if the job was still open, Jon Gruden. If you’re talking about change, those guys would have brought it.

(The picture, by the way, is of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I just thought it looked cool.)

9:24 a.m., Joe Erwin says:
Jets fans, if Rex Ryan isn’t a sexy-enough hire for you, you need to look at the reason the Jets aren’t bringing in a big-name coach. Here’s a hint: He wears No. 4.

With Brett Favre in his annual will-he-or-won’t-he-retire phase, the Jets were hamstrung from the start. That’s why Bill Cowher withdrew his name soon after he surfaced as a possible candidate. Woody Johnson is still star-struck by Favre, so as long as there’s a chance Favre will return, a coach the stature of Cowher or Mike Shanahan isn’t coming knowing he might spend his first year as coach with Favre really in charge. Had Favre been out of the picture for sure, the job would have been a lot more attractive to the likes of Cowher, Shanahan or Gruden.

12:28 p.m., Sam says:

We’ve had some interesting comments so far, including one from Giants blog regular Colour1, who says (in part): “Big names with the likes of Cowher and Shannahan-Gruden bring high pressure to the team. With this well educated “freshman” coach all you can do is go up!”

I’m not sure I agree. I think the pressure in New York is always there – in this case, it’ll be on the players AND the coach, not just the players OR the coach. After the collapse the Jets had this past season, there is immediate urgency to turn it around and not just be the ‘same old Jets’ for another year. That was going to be the case whether they hired Rex Ryan or Vince Lombardi. It’s just New York.

I think they owed it to themselves to look more seriously at the established route. Put it this way: Woody Johnson went on vacation right after firing Mangini, and thus couldn’t be bothered to come back and put a real press on Cowher, letting him know the Jets were serious about turning their franchise into a winner. How “thorough” a coaching search can it be if the owner begins it lying on a beach somewhere?

(Full disclosure: I don’t really know what Woody Johnson does on his vacations. He could a mountain-climber or something. “Lying on a beach” just seemed like a reasonable guess. The point is the same though.)

4:09 p.m., Joe Erwin says:

Jets fans shouldn’t be quick to dismiss Ryan. After all, Bill Parcells won two Super Bowls in his first stint as an NFL head coach. He won none in his second, third and fourth stops, with his playoff performance diminishing in each job. Jets fans though Parcells was the savior when he came, and while he turned the team around, reaching the AFC championship game isn’t the ultimate goal. Winning the Super Bowl is.

Perhaps Rex Ryan is the guy to return the Jets to their glory days. Actually with the Jets, it was just one glory DAY, when they won Super Bowl III. Joe Namath got the headlines and the MVP, stealing away the attention from a defense that held a Colts team that scored 34 points in the NFL championship game to just seven in the Super Bowl. Buddy Ryan, Rex’s father, was the linebackers coach for the Jets, so maybe there is some good karma there.