Sunday night’s big game between the Jets and the Ravens in Baltimore at one level boils down to the battle of the defensive Jedi warriors—and Baltimore’s DC Chuck Pagano plays Luke Skywalker against his unmentionable Father, Rex Ryan…
“How do you compare Chuck and Rex?” Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis asked himself. “I think they’re very similar.”
New York Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan coached defense for 10 years in Baltimore, including four as the defensive coordinator from 2005-2008.
After Ryan left, the Ravens defense remained ranked among the NFL’s top units under Greg Mattison. But, it had a different personality than the one Ryan fostered and Pagano has re-established.
Part of it can be traced back to the two men’s personalities.
“Both of them are very fiery,” Lewis said. “And I think [there are] a lot of similarities because both of them are player-coaches. They really relate to their players and things like that. I don’t really know a difference because both Rex and Chuck are very outgoing. Both of them are very outgoing.”
Another part of it is that Pagano climbed up the Ryan coaching tree.
Pagano was Ryan’s secondary coach for one year in 2008. He also worked with Ryan’s twin brother, Rob, for two years in Oakland in 2005 and 2006. Pagano was the defensive backs coach and Rob was the defensive coordinator.
“Coming from a football family, they’re a wealth of knowledge there from a football and schematic standpoint and those type of things,” Pagano said.
Like Ryan, Pagano has shown he’s not afraid to bring a safety or a cornerback off the edge – from Bernard Pollard, to Lardarius Webb, and a host of other players.
He also gives the Ravens flexibility, as Lewis attested to. Pagano has already dropped defensive tackle Haloti Ngata in coverage this year, for example.
But there are some differences – particularly in just how “aggressive” each coach is willing to be.
Ravens outside linebacker Jarret Johnson said Rex is “more emotional” with his calls. He’ll call an all-out blitz right after getting torched just because he’s angry, Johnson said.
“I don’t think anybody is as aggressive as him,” Pagano said with a laugh.
“I would say I am [more aggressive],” Ryan said. “His roots are more in the secondary than mine are. … He’s probably less likely to hang his guys out in the secondary than I am.”
However you slice it, Pagano is a student of Ryan and will try his best to outsmart the master… just another intriguing angle to this upcoming game between the Ravens and the Jets.
(Thanks to Ryan Mink at Baltimore Ravens.com for access to his quotations of the players and coaches listed above…)
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