It's time for Coach Ryan to grow up

With his Jets team in turmoil, Rex Being Rex simply won't cut it anymore

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- When a worn-out-looking Rex Ryan admitted Monday that he lost "the pulse" of his Jets team this season, it was as short and sweet an indictment possible of why his Gotta Be Me management style has got to go. The problem with the Jets during their 8-8 season that ended Sunday with a thudding loss to the five-win Miami Dolphins wasn't just players versus player. It was also, by Ryan's own admission, Ryan's problematic relationship with the team itself.
For once, Ryan put the desperado act on the shelf for a moment Monday, and conceded there were some things he is now second-guessing himself about. A few mea culpas and promises to personally change took the place of his usual unadulterated defiance.

He just didn't go far enough, though the proof of why he should was all around him after he was done pleading, raging and occasionally even shoving away a few tears in his break-up day talk to the team.

Everywhere you looked afterward, there seemed to be a fed-up or emotional or shaken Jets player packing up his things.

Jets linebacker Bart Scott walked out of the locker room dragging a black plastic trash bag across the tiled hallway floor and saying little -- until he cussed at a photographer to get his camera out of his face.

Darrelle Revis, normally one of the most accommodating Jets, shouldered through the crowd around his locker with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head, and he looked like he hadn't slept a wink. He just grabbed something from his locker, then silently shouldered his way out past the media mob again, saying "Nope ... Nope ... Nope" to every request to stop and talk.

Then Santonio Holmes did the same thing, refusing to fire back as he headed out the door. Hearing his thoughts on the teammates who basically called him a locker-room cancer will have to wait.

Mark Sanchez, the Jets' lousy quarterback, should be tossed on the scrap heap along with his offensive coordinator

Ryan's baiting of opposing teams and coaches has blown up in the Jets' faces so often that Tomlinson, then Sanchez, then Revis all publicly admitted in recent weeks that yes, it does make rivals play harder against the Jets.

Quarterback Greg McElroy offered a window Wednesday into the toxic Jets locker room that constituted another rebuke to coach Rex Ryan for ignoring the warning signs of disunity.

McElroy, a constant presence in the locker room and meetings despite spending his first season on injured reserve, said the Jets suffered from "a corrupt mindset" that was fostered by "extremely selfishindividuals."

During a bizarre press conference on Monday, Ryan said he had no ideathat his own team was breaking apart, and not just because of Santonio Holmes' infamous huddle blowup in the final minutes of the season-ending loss to Miami.

"It's definitely not a fun place to be, I can assure you," the former Alabama quarterback told the Birmingham, Ala., radio station 97.3The Zone on Wednesday. "It's the first time I've ever been around extremely selfish individuals.

"There were people within our locker room that didn't care whether we won or lost as long as they had really had good gamesindividually," McElroy added.

McElroy's comments suggested that Ryan would have been hard-pressed not to notice the divisive culture that had grown throughout the Jets' 8-8 season. And McElroy said he feared for the future because of it.

"That's the disappointing thing," he told the radio station.

"It's going to take a lot to come together next year. I think the fact we struggled at times this year really led to this corrupt mindset within the locker room.

"But I think we're going to regroup," McElroy continued. "I think we'll be a better team because of the trials and tribulations this year."

Ryan promised offseason changes, presumably involving some of the unnamed "selfish" players. Holmes may not be one of them, however, because his contract makes him virtually untradeable. The Jets would have to absorb a nearly $9 million cap hit if they cut Holmes outright.