Bill Plaschke: Rex Ryan should be punished for recent comments

Columnist

Sept. 8, 2011 10:19 AM PT

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The NFL season hasn’t even started yet and officials already need to throw a flag.

Can somebody please penalize Rex Ryan for illegal procedure of his mouth?

Ryan, the giant coach of the New York Jets who talks like he eats -- in huge quantities, sometimes making a huge mess -- has crossed the line from dumb to dangerous.

On Wednesday afternoon, talking about the Dallas Cowboy fans who are expected to show up at MetLife Stadium on Sunday for the season opener, Ryan said, ‘I don’t know why they’d be here. They’re coming into our stadium. It’s probably not recommended that you wear Cowboys stuff, I would think.’

The published account of his quote notes that he, ‘joked,’ but this is about as funny as a brain injury.
Amid the current climate of fan violence, Ryan essentially just put out a hit on Cowboy fans.

In warning Cowboy fans to stay away, he’s inciting Jets fans to punish them for showing up, and you have to wonder how Rex Ryan has been able to coach his team while living on another planet.

Did he not see the recent chaos in San Francisco, where fights between fans of the 49ers and Oakland Raiders resulted in 70 ejections, 12 arrests, two parking-lot shootings and one restroom beating that left a man unconscious?

Was he not aware of the violence outside Dodger Stadium last spring, where two Dodger fan beat Bryan Stow into a coma simply because Stow was wearing a San Francisco Giants jersey?

With the economy tanking and unemployment peaking, fans are increasingly coming to games to blow off the steam. Dressed in their team’s jersey, they can scream with the players, celebrate with the players and essentially spend three hours pretending to be a player.

This includes their desire to compete with the opposition like a player. Only, sadly, the opposition is some poor fan in a visiting jersey and the competition is conducted with physical violence.

In the grainy, black-and-white world of George Halas and Vince Lombardi, football coaches could truly joke about visiting fans while attempting to fire up their home fans, and Ryan has always been a grainy, black-and-white sort of coach.

But the sports world has changed, it’s now colorful and caustic, and Ryan should have known better than to urge Jets fans to defend their turf against fans who just happen to cheer for the other team.

Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, needs to immediately fine Ryan for these comments and issue an edict warning NFL coaches against issuing similar statements.

Seriously, Ryan said he doesn’t know why Cowboy fans would be at Sunday’s game? I don’t know, maybe to watch the game?

MORE:

The NFL is here, and resistance is futile

Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers can settle this matter too

It’s back to basics and buzz as NFL starts up in Green Bay

-- Bill Plaschke

Sports Now

Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.