Rex Ryan says he ‘100 percent’ knew he was done with Jets

Bills running back Fred Jackson, the epitome of veteran leadership in Buffalo, does not think Rex Ryan has to explain the signing of IK Enemkpali to anyone. “I knew that”, Ryan told Andrea Kremer in a sitdown interview that will air next week on HBO’s “Real Sports“.

He also knew “100 percent” that he would be “done” as the Jets’ coach. He said that the team knows that what happened was “a awful thing” and that Enemkpali made a mistake, but that he was also a good teammate.

Ryan took the Jets to the AFC Championship twice after taking over the team, but the Jets finished the 2013 season with an 8-8 record and didn’t do much in free agency to help build the team, as Ryan noted.

Instead, the team parted ways with general manager Mike Tannenbaum and brought in former Seahawks vice president John Idzik to run the team.

In the clip below, Ryan discusses his relationship with Jets owner Woody Johnson, who he says wanted to keep him around, and the conditions that led to the inevitability of his firing.

“Yeah, every day I’d talk to him – we talked like brothers”, Ryan said, “I knew Woody never wanted to fire me”. I know Woody never wanted to fire me. “There’s no question Woody wanted that”. There’s no way. It wouldn’t have worked in New York.

Asked if there was a scenario in which Johnson could’ve kept him, Ryan said, “Maybe, but I’ll tell you this: He couldn’t do it. There’s no chance he could’ve brought in another GM and kept me again”.

So could he have stayed in New York this year? One anonymous player said, “Geno deserved it”.