What Rex Ryan Meant

Rex Ryan caught a lot of heat about his training camp opening speech, which was filled with enough expletives to draw cringes from league officials. This impassioned assessment of what the Jets are capable of has been the primary cause of the mass media narrative that has dominated coverage of the team in 2010. The boasting of Ryan was so uncommon for an NFL head coach that it's changed the perception of the entire team, although the majority of the Jets players are not big talkers.

The past 3 games have been a virtual demonstration of that speech, as the Jets have mowed down the AFC East with the most consistent offensive display the franchise has shown in a decade. The questions for the 2010 Jets have become can they keep this up and just how well can they play? Last week in Buffalo, the defense didn't yield a third down conversion and the running game featured two 100-yard performances, while Mark Sanchez went another start without a turnover.

Rex Ryan feels that the Jets' best game is the best game there is in the league, and he may be right. The Jets get another chance to showcase their talent against the Vikings this evening. Great players and great teams look at every competitive contest as a new opportunity to not just succeed, but to be spectacular. There is no bigger stage in the regular season than Monday night in the NFL.

When you add in the subplots of Randy Moss returning to face off against Darrelle Revis, whether or not Minnesota can make the best use of Moss right away and help the Vikings avoid a 1-3 start, the 2010 debut of both Calvin Pace and Santonio Holmes for the Jets, and the return of both Brett Favre and Brett Favre's newly famous penis to the tri-state area, and there's almost too much going on in this one to speak of clearly.

This game isn't as big as the folks at ESPN will have you believe, but the Jets won't want to surrender the momentum they've built in the first month of the season. You only get so many chances to make an impression on the entire league on national television. It will be interesting to see how the Jets respond tonight in the new Meadowlands Stadium.