Rex Ryan changing up Jets offense

If you want something done, you do it yourself.

And New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan, never a stranger to controversy, is changing up the Jets offense himself.

New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan (Howard Smith/US Presswire)

Leading up to the Jets victory against the Washington Redskins on Sunday, Ryan decided a change was needed on offense.  A master of the defensive scheme, Ryan approached offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, telling him to use the once-successful wildcat formation.

The result:  7 plays, 26 yards, including a Shonn Greene TD in the 4th quarter to ice the game.

“I think it’s tough to defend if you’re not really focused on it,” Ryan said on Monday. “Sometimes it’s tough to defend…. We thought this is a good football team (Redskins).  They’re really good against the run. So we thought we could challenge them by putting in some of those things… That was my feeling on it. When Schotty and I talked about, he said, ‘That sounds like a great idea. Let’s go for it.’”

“You’ll make suggestions to everybody,” Ryan said. “We’re just trying to help. We’re all on the same page. If there’s something that I see that I think might be decent (for) us…  then we’ll mention it. We’ll have our defensive coaches sometimes come up with suggestions for the offense. And vice versa. We don’t care where we get it from. We’re a team. We’re all trying to shoot for the same thing. That was something that the offense kind of embraced. We practiced it and I thought we were pretty successful at it.”

(Continue reading to see Ryan’s next change already made)

“It was a difficult week of practice,” said guard Matt Slauson. “But it all worked out.”

“We’re always ready for any suggestions he’s ready to make,” Santonio Holmes said. “At this point, you go with the flow of the game. If it requires changing up, you have to be ready for changes.”

With one change made, Ryan has already focused on another area that needs help; special teams.   Safety Jim Leonhard will officially replace Jeremy Kerley as the team’s punt returner.   Ryan made the announcement Monday.

“He can catch it in a hurricane,” Ryan said of Leonhard.