The last time the Jets made the playoffs, their passing game coordinator was the teenage son of the team’s head coach.
Seth Ryan went on to play at Clemson and coach for the Chargers and Lions before joining Aaron Glenn’s staff this offseason. That makes him a third-generation member of the organization after his father Rex, who coached the team to two AFC title games, and his grandfather Buddy, who was the defensive line coach when the Jets won their only Super Bowl.
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“I’m not blind to the fact how much this really means to myself and my family,” Seth Ryan said, via Dennis Waszak of the Associated Press. “This is an organization I’ve been trying to get to for my career and I grew up here, went to high school in Summit, my wife is from Jersey. You know, this means a lot to our family.”
Ryan also shared the printable portion of his father’s response to the news that he’d be joining the Jets.
“I won’t repeat exactly what he said,” Ryan said. “But there was a lot of excitement and he was like, ‘Man, I can’t wait for you to be there and hopefully help turn this around and help be a part of that.’ . . . It would be really unbelievable because I was here (for) those AFC championship seasons. And I got to be on the field for that and I saw what the fans were like and how amazing it really was, the stadium atmosphere and just the energy around the team. So that’s something I hope to build and replicate here.”
Ryan’s father, grandfather and uncle Rob have all been defensive coaches, so he’s broken from the family tradition by choosing the offensive side of the ball. The Jets will be hoping that he still brings some of the success that the other Ryans brought to the team.