FanPost

Who is Rex Ryan and what can he do for the Falcons?

With 96 games under his belt, Rex Ryan is without question the most experienced head coaching candidate on the market. But he does come with some problems that even in his final year with the Jets he never managed to fix.

As someone who has watched the majority of games coached by Rex Ryan since 2009, I can give you a pretty clear picture of what Rex can give you and what he can't give you.

Let's start with what Rex CAN'T do:

If you want a head coach that will manage a game in crunch time, use timeouts wisely, win challenges and develop a young QB then you might as well keep looking because Rex Ryan won't give you any of those things.

Throughout his last four years as head coach Rex Ryan showed terrible clock management, had 12 men on the field once or twice every other game, wasted timeouts inexplicably and of course bringing nothing to the table from an offensive perspective.

The close games will be frustrating to watch and will leave you either disappointed or saying you should've won by a lot more.

Rex's teams also lack a killer instinct and never put the boot on an opponents neck, so you will almost never run up the score on a team you far outclass.

Last but of no less importance is his refusal to work with or develop an offense. Coaches need to adapt and Rex Ryan will never become the well-rounded coach on both sides of the ball that Andy Reid, Bill Belichik, Pete Carroll or Jim Harbaugh have become.

Now let's take a look at what Rex Ryan CAN do for you:

The defense WILL go from worst to first - maybe not No. 1 per se, but even in his absolute worst years the Jets never ranked lower than 11th in yards allowed. Give him one, just one top flight CB and he can give you one of the best defenses in the league - as he did for the Jets in 2009 and 2010. While you can point out that the team was in the bottom half of points allowed in his final few years, many of those deficiencies come from turnovers committed in their own territory (around 70 total turnovers in the last four years as a matter of fact) which gave the team a terribly short field.

All Rex Ryan needs is a talented CB and the pass rush won't matter - in six years with the Jets they only ever had two 10+ sack players (All-Pro Muhammad Wilkerson in 2013 and Calvin Pace also in 2013).

Now for another thing Rex Ryan brings - player loyalty. Believe me when I say you will get big games out of players you've never even heard of when stars go down with injuries. The Falcons players will warm up to Rex very quickly and will run through walls for him - your impending free agents will not be so eager to jump ship even when the chips are down.

Quite the opposite actually, the Falcons would in turn become a lightning rod for defensive free agents, especially CBs like Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie, Tramon Williams and Walter Thurmond. And the defensive linemen will be attracted like flies: B. J. Raji, Jason Pierre-Paul, Damon Harrison, and so on.

Some people don't like the occasional displays of bombast by Rex, but he'll make even losing feel like a blip on the radar as opposed to a sign of something terrible. He'll never throw players or other coaches under the bus and will always give the team a chance to win.

He is the only coach in the last decade to beat both Peyton Manning AND Tom Brady in back-to-back weeks (2010 playoffs), so you'll never need to be afraid of a team with a better QB.

Lastly, Rex will never bring you into a game where you say to yourselves you have no chance to win. In four straight games against the New England Patriots with no offense, no special teams and a diminished secondary, the Patriots have outscored the Jets by a grand total of 3 points. 3 points - in four games.

All of what I've said merely scratches the surface of the pros and cons of Rex Ryan, but perhaps now you have a clearer picture of the kind of coach he is and the kind of culture he can bring to Atlanta.

<em>This FanPost was written by one of The Falcoholic's talented readers. It does not necessarily reflect the views of The Falcoholic.</em>