“Outcoached,” “Outplayed,” and “bu*** kicked” were the few words Rex Ryan used to describe the New York Jets’ 45-3 loss at the hands of Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in their Week 13 matchup during the 2010 season. However, Ryan got another opportunity to face Belichick and avenge the humiliating loss when the two teams met in the Divisional Round.
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Ahead of the matchup, Ryan made it clear that “I recognized that this week is about Bill Belichick against Rex Ryan.”
But there was a story behind this statement. The then-head coach wanted his players fired up as the Jets looked to get even. For the same reason, Ryan told his players in a pregame speech the day before the game that (to fire them up) he would punch Belichick in the face after shaking hands with him.
“We’re going in, we make the playoffs, and this was my second year with the Jets,” said Ryan on Bussin’ With The Boys. “All the reporters gonna talk about us getting our a** kicked 45 to 3, right? So I’m like, ‘I gotta change the narrative because I don’t want that hanging on my team.’ And so I’m like, ‘Hey, this has nothing to do with the players. This is me against Bill Belichick. That’s what this game comes down to, alright, and I know they say he’s the best of all time, but he better be, because I’m gonna be at my best, and it’s gonna be pretty damn good.'”
Ryan said he took the heat for the message himself. When people questioned whether he had gone too far by calling out Belichick, his players reportedly responded that Ryan believed in what he was saying and that he was crazy enough to think they could win. Turns out he was right. The Jets went out to beat the Patriots.
“It was funny after the game because my owner, Woody Johnson, was like, ‘Rex, I thought like, should we take this back a little bit? And I go, ‘No.’ I go, ‘Here’s what’s gonna happen, Woody. After we beat them, I’m gonna say it had nothing to do with me, and it had everything to do with my players,’ and that’s exactly what I said,” Ryan added.
However, when asked whether it was the same game when Ryan said that he was going to set the tone in pregame by punching Belichick in the face, Ryan bluntly said, “Well, maybe. I go, ‘If you guys want that, I’ll set it right there out; you know, I’ll punch him right in the face.'”
The divisional round against the Patriots carried significant weight for Ryan, considering he knew that the media would continue discussing the team’s previous 45-3 loss to New England just five weeks before the playoff game. Rather than allowing the story to become about his players getting destroyed by the Patriots, Ryan made himself the story.
He publicly framed the playoff game as a coaching battle with Belichick, who was entering the divisional round matchup after eight straight wins and as the No. 1 seed in the AFC. That gave his players the impression that Ryan genuinely believed they could win.
New York won at Foxborough, defeating the 14-2 Patriots 28-21. Mark Sanchez threw for 194 yards and three scores on 16 completions in 25 attempts. Meanwhile, the Jets’ defense frustrated Tom Brady, who threw for 299 yards, two touchdowns and an interception on 29-of-45 passing, and largely shut down the Patriots’ offense en route to one of the postseason’s biggest upsets.
However, it was Ryan’s story about punching Belichick in the face that drew significant attention. A couple of years later, former Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson revealed that Ryan had once told his players that he would set the tempo by punching the Patriots head coach in the face when they met at midfield.
“Rex is a master motivator, and it was going to be a big game, a heated rivalry game,” Tomlinson told NFL Network in 2013. “Rex got in front us, and he said, ‘I’m going to set the tempo today, I’m going to set the tempo when I meet Bill Belichick in the center of the field. I’m going to start it off and punch him in the face.’ We loved that. I loved that from Rex.”
While Tomlinson didn’t identify the game, the Jets had avenged their humiliating 45-3 loss against the Patriots by eliminating them from the playoffs. However, Ryan and his team eventually lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. For Ryan, unfortunately, that was his last playoff appearance as the Jets’ coach and as an NFL head coach.