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Rex reveals 'plan' for Jets: East champs

Print | Comments () Posted by Albert Breer May 11, 2010 10:20 AM

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It'd been too long, right? Just too long since Rex Ryan lobbed a verbal grenade toward New England, huh?

Well, the wait for the next swing is over. Appearing on ESPN 1050 in New York yesterday, the Jets coach wound up and let the Patriots have it.

OK, so maybe that's a little strong. The words look a little worse in print than they sounded on the air, after giving them a listen. Ryan was responding to some complimentary comments about the Jets from Tom Brady.

"He's a smart guy," Ryan told host Michael Kay. "As I put it, it's on. We're not afraid of that. We're making sure everybody knows it, that we plan of being the team that wins the division this year."

So the fun begins. This started with Brady telling SI.com's Peter King that the Jets are "always a team that gives us problems, and they've sure made a lot of changes this offseason. When your arch-rivals do as much as they've done, you've got to pay attention. They went to the conference championship game, they've got a great defense, they can run the ball as well as anyone, and they've got a great young quarterback who can make a lot of plays.

"Our whole division's improved. To win the division, we'll really have to earn it this year.''

Brady will get his chance to fire back with a 7 a.m. appearance on WEEI tomorrow morning.

Now, it's worth noting that Ryan didn't stop with his comment about winning the division (he SHOULD believe his team will win the division, shouldn't he?), adding that it won't be easy.

"We know it's gonna be a great challenge," Ryan said. "But I've seen our guys, we're working so hard in the offseason. And the job's to get better, and I think we've gotten better in the offseason as far as the personnel. We've added a lot of guys that I think will help us. We lost a lot of good players, but we've added a lot of quality as well.

"And the way our guys are working, I think this is going to be a tremendous season for us. We only have one goal and that's to win the Super Bowl, and that's what we plan on doing this year."

In the past, maybe you could say that Ryan would pay for his words ... but then, last year happened and, well, all you can really say now is that he's going to make this whole division race just a little more entertaining.