Skip to main content

Rex Ryan calls Jets 'just another opponent'

Rex Ryan spent six years coaching the New York Jets. Thursday night he will return to MetLife Stadium with his Buffalo Bills, but insists he hasn't thought about facing his former team.

"I promise you, it's just another opponent right now," Ryan said Sunday after Buffalo's 33-17 victory over the Miami Dolphins, via ESPN.com. "Now will that change when I'm in there? That's a possibility. But I can tell you this -- it's all about, you're playing another team. And I know that team really well.

"But that's really what it is. And it's no more than that -- I can promise you. It'll be the same way I'm answering it right now until at the end. Now after the game, that might change."

Rex trying not to provide any bulletin board material is a new tactic.

The Bills coach said he hasn't thought about playing the Jets "for one second" since being fired last December.

(We cannot confirm that his nose grew or that his pants caught on fire as he uttered those words. NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport is currently checking with sources.)

Facing a division rival on Thursday Night Football (airing exclusively on NFL Network) is usually enough for Rex to spout pronouncements of grandeur. But with his Bills team at 4-4 and teetering on the outskirts of the playoffs, while his former team is 5-3, Ryan knows better than to give any extra motivation to Gang Green in a game the Bills must win.