Jets Rex Ryan: ‘I never said I had to have the best corner in football’
Good cornerbacks are on short supply. Two years ago Jets head coach seemed to have a plan. He was going to let Darrelle Revis go in free agency and draft Dee Milliner to supplant him. But the best laid plans often go awry, and Dee Milliner suffered what is believed to be a high ankle sprain.
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“I never said I had to have the best corner in football,” Ryan said Monday, via NJ.com one day after Milner’s injury. “That’s not it. My defenses work, period. I don’t care what it is. We take what we have, and then we work around it. So we work to the strength of our players, and it’s always players over system. We’ve been around enough that it’ll work out.
“That’s why, to me, it’s not a panic situation, it’s an opportunity. … We’re not a one-trick pony thing. We’re not a team that tries to stick a square peg in a round hole. We’ll take what we have and we’ll make it work.”
The Jets players are not “square.” They are versatile — at least Ryan expects them to be. Jets Safety Antonio Allen, who played SAM linebacker in college, will play cornerback with the first team, according to NJ.com. Darrin Walls will play across him. Ryan may not need the best cornerback in the league, but he will need one that’s decent. He’s got to stop Tom Brady and the AFC East youngsters Ryan Tannehill and E.J. Manuel. Still, there’s no panicking Rex Ryan.
“We’re going to try everybody there—everybody’s going to get a shot,” Ryan said. “That’s just [Monday] how we did it.”