FanHouse New York Jets

Could we all please stop telling Rex Ryan how to live his life? I mean, I think we should stop telling everybody how to live their lives, but we can start with Rex. Poor guy has coached nine games in the NFL and has already been called everything from a breath of fresh air to a blowhard to a crybaby. Yeah, in case you haven't heard the last thing on the Jets' head coach is that he cried during a team meeting Monday morning. The New York Post broke the story, and it became a big deal in New York. Ryan, to his credit, brought of box of tissues to his Wednesday news conference, joked that he'd just scored a sponsorship deal with Kleenex and said, "I'm man enough to be me."

"I'll be true to myself," Ryan said. "I'm always going to be, and I said that from day one. If I don't fit the stereotype of coach-speak or anything else, so be it. I'm always going to be myself."

Can I say I hope Ryan is reading this when I type, "Thank goodness?"

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. -- Ted Cottrell hasn't gotten off to a good start with the New York Sentinels, who have lost their first four games to start the UFL's inaugural campaign.

Cottrell, though, is relishing the opportunity to be a head coach, a position that he had been passed over for numerous times despite his lengthy resume. He has been a defensive assistant in college, the USFL and the NFL since breaking in as a defensive line coach at Rutgers in 1973.

Last Wednesday, Cottrell's club suffered a 41-10 defeat at the hands of the Las Vegas Locomotives. It was the second home game for the Sentinels, who hosted the Locos at Hofstra's James M. Shuart Stadium, where the game was moved after it was originally scheduled for Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets.

Braylon Edwards has been charged with misdemeanor assault after an investigation into an incident outside a Cleveland nightclub, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

Early on the morning of Oct. 5, Edwards was allegedly involved in a disagreement with Edward Givens, a Cleveland-area promoter. According to Givens, Edwards punched him in the face because "Braylon has a problem with LeBron [James]" and Givens is James' friend.

The Plain Dealer also reported that the Browns contacted the FBI following the incident because of alleged threats being made to Edwards.

Fans of the New York Jets don't need any more angst, especially after the abysmal performance by rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez on Sunday.

So, Jets fans, stop reading now because Brooks Bollinger, a former starter for Gang Green in 2005, has been a standout signal caller in the UFL.

Check Bollinger's numbers in two season-opening wins for the Florida Tuskers: 44-of-58, 535 yards, 7 TDs and 1 INT. Thanks in part to Bollinger, the Tuskers have scored 64 points and amassed 792 yards of total offense in those contests.

OK, masters of the obvious, success in the UFL doesn't equate to similar prowess in the NFL. It's the irony, however, that strikes us, as well as the opportunity for a social experiment.

Will New York fans second-guess anything, even if they are, in effect, second-guessing themselves?

You think being 0-2 scares Jeff Fisher? No chance. He's been 0-2 before. Heck, in 2006 his Tennessee Titans were 0-5 before finishing with a flurry that got them back to 8-8 and the fringes of the AFC playoff race.

"That was one of my favorite teams," Fisher said on a conference call earlier this week. "I've never been around a better locker room than that 0-5 team, because they believed in themselves and what they were doing. The key is, you just sell that belief."

That's what Fisher is selling this week, as his tough-luck Titans head to the Meadowlands to face the fast-starting, trash-talking Jets and the very real prospect of being 0-3. The good thing for Tennessee is that there's probably no salesman in the NFL better equipped for the job.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- This is how Jets receiver Jerricho Cotchery knows his quarterback is an overgrown child. On the first play of the second half Sunday against the Patriots, Mark Sanchez hit Cotchery with a 45-yard pass down the right sideline. When Cotchery got up at the end of the play -- a 45-yard pass play, remember -- Sanchez was standing right there in front of him, screaming in Cotchery's face and whacking his helmet in celebration.

And it's not the first time that's happened.

"When you catch a long pass 30, 40 yards down the field, you're not used to seeing your quarterback right there in your face when you get up," Cotchery said Monday. "I'm like, 'What happened? Did you throw it and start running after it right away?' "

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- David Carr has been where Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford are -- sort of. He knows what it feels like to be a high draft pick with huge expectations who's named a starting quarterback in the NFL right out of college. A 16-game starter on the 2002 expansion Houston Texans, Carr got to experience first-hand what Sanchez and Stafford will start experiencing for real this weekend. And it's not that he's trying to scare anybody, but ...

"If I had it to do all over again, I think I would have rather watched," Carr, now the Giants' backup QB, told FanHouse on Monday. "There were just so many bad habits I picked up that, if I'd seen another guy doing it, I don't think I would have."

---

---

Jets coach Rex Ryan has informed Mark Sanchez and Kellen Clemens that Sanchez has won the starting quarterback job, FanHouse has confirmed. A source said Ryan gave the news to the two candidates this morning, as first reported by Jay Glazer on FOXSports.com. Ryan's daily press conference is scheduled for 2 PM ET, after the Jets practice today in Florham Park, N.J., and he's likely to make his decision public at that time.

---

---

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- That first throw didn't go quite as smoothly for Mark Sanchez as it may have looked. That the Jets' rookie quarterback electrified the small preseason crowd at Giants Stadium with a 48-yard strike to David Clowney on the first professional pass of his career was the story of the night, but as cool as he appeared, there was more going on than you may have realized if you were watching on TV.

---

---