NY Jets can keep Rex Ryan for 2014, but he must earn contract extension

The Jets can keep Rex Ryan if they want to, he did a very good job this season, even if that job is already being wildly over-praised and over-evaluated. But the idea that he is also entitled to a contract extension happens to be from outer space.

Think about it:

All we’ve heard for weeks is how much Ryan’s players love him, how much they want him back, please don’t fire him. Well, if they love him all that much, wouldn’t they play even harder for him in the last year of his contract? Seriously, why would anybody think they were going to quit on him when it would be official he was coaching to keep his job?

I like Rex Ryan and have from the start and would love to see him actually earn a new deal in 2014. But I wouldn’t add five extra minutes to his contract right now. He has earned another year, if that really is the way the Jets plan to go with the guy. But he hasn’t earned anything more than that.

He did more than he was expected to do with a rookie quarterback and no stars at any of his skill positions. He is also out of the playoffs for a third straight year. So somebody needs to explain why Rex thought he could do a victory lap after his team beat the 4-10 Browns last Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

Just because the Jets exceeded expectations doesn’t mean Rex Ryan gets to be the Jets’ coach for life. Suddenly, though, his players act as if this game against the Dolphins is their Super Bowl, this chance to get back to .500. But how can this season be considered some sort of rousing triumph if the Jets lose today, and end up going 2-5 down the stretch after playing themselves into the playoff conversation in the AFC?

Even if you are the biggest Rex fan in this world, you have to ask yourself a question today:

What lasting skill position player on offense has been developed on his watch?

All this time after he hit town the way he did, loud and brash and funny, you still wonder if he is a glorified defensive coordinator. Everybody thought the same thing about Bill Belichick until we found out differently once he got to Foxborough, and made it to five Super Bowls and won three of them even if he hasn’t won any lately.

One thing has remained consistent about Ryan, other than his personality: He gets an awful lot of credit when the defense does well, but gets none of the blame for the offense. We have always heard that he’s not the one picking the players. But, come on, does anybody actually believe that Ryan has been sent out of the room when the roster was being put together, especially before John Idzik became his boss?

Again: The Jets have plenty of solid reasons to bring him back, whether it’s official that he’s coming back or not. But if he is coming back, let him play out his contract. Let him earn an extension, not just be handed one because it’s supposed to be a felony in the NFL for a coach to play out his contract.

Athletes play out their contracts all the time, and sometimes play better than they ever have in their walk years. Why shouldn’t it be the same for coaches? If the Jets come back and make the playoffs next season, Rex gets a great big new contract. If they don’t, then they can say goodbye to him, just without parting gifts.

No Plan B for Dolan & Hal's on right path...
-James Dolan said his coach isn’t going anywhere and the Knicks aren’t making any trades.

Translation?

He doesn’t have a replacement for Mike Woodson in place and nobody wants any of Dolan’s basketball players.

-Praise the Lord and pass the checkbook, if the Yankees outbid everybody for this kid Tanaka, perhaps our long national nightmare — and obsession — about a $189 million payroll for the Yankees might finally come to an end.

The coverage, of course, will be that Hal Steinbrenner has finally come to his senses, as if the Yankees going past $200 million again guarantees them World Series No. 28.

But Hal Steinbrenner has a right to look at the bottom line on his own bottom line.

He has a right to look back over the past decade, just since the luxury tax found its way into Major League Baseball, and not only see the $250 million the Yankees have had to shell out because of that tax (out of a total of $280 million in all of baseball), but the $200 million-plus his team pays out every single year in payroll.

You do the math on that.

Oh sure, go ahead, do the math on payroll plus taxes as you remember that the Yankees since 2000 have won the same number of World Series as the Marlins and White Sox, one fewer than the Cardinals, two fewer than the Red Sox.

Steinbrenner has been portrayed as some kind of narrow-minded cheapskate for asking his baseball people to just spend an amount of money that is more than any team in baseball — other than his own — has ever spent on a World Series-winning team, in all of baseball history.

Jeff Zelevansky/ Getty Images

Ryan takes a lap around MetLife Stadium after beating the 4-10 Browns, but exceeding expectations doesn't make him Jets' coach for life.

But this is what happens when you don’t have a farm system.

-Hadn’t we sort of closed the books on Hobbit movies?

Every year you start the NBA season thinking that maybe — maybe — five teams have a chance to win the championship.

In baseball, 20 teams will start next season thinking they can win the World Series.

Incidentally, I keep thinking that the Red Sox might be a player with Tanaka, if for no other reason than to nudge our guys on 161st St. even further past that magic number of $189 million.

After all this time, J.R. Smith consistently makes basketball decisions that are dumber than a sock drawer.

-There is no telling what the Packers will get out of Aaron Rodgers today, when he returns from his collarbone injury against the Bears, the NFC North title on the line.

But if the Packers do win this game, they might be a very tough out in the tournament, right?

There is no such thing as a bad Sunday, or bad weekend in the National Football League, and if you don’t think so, just take a look at last weekend.

Cardinals go into Seattle, where Russell Wilson had never lost, and beat the Seahawks.

Patriots go into Baltimore, after the Ravens have won four in a row, and beat them, 41-7.

The Bears, with so much to play for, lose, 54-11, to the Eagles in Philadelphia.

Tony Romo, playing the end of the game with a herniated disc that requires season-ending surgery before the week is out, takes his team down the field and completes a fourth-and-season pass to win the game for the Cowboys.

And, oh by the way, Peyton Manning throws his 51st touchdown pass for the Broncos.

Other than that, nothing much happened.

The literary world was profoundly saddened this week by news that maybe Alex Rodriguez isn’t going to write a book after all.

Saving The Times from having to make a decision about whether to put it on the fiction or non-fiction Best Seller List.

Because I’m trying to be brave, I’m not missing Cano nearly as much so far as I thought I was going to.

But we’re still almost two months out on pitchers and catchers.

Isn’t it amazing that every time you read or hear about the Knicks’ latest long-range blueprint for success, that blueprint never includes these two words:

Player development.

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The Mike Lupica Show is heard Monday through Friday at noon and Sunday at 9 a.m. on ESPN-98.7.