Gang Green Nation
I couldn’t tell you the reason, but football tends to produce the most classic coach press conference rants than any other sport. On the college side, the undisputed king of press conference rants is the recently fired Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State. In 2007 he famously yelled at a reporter, “I’m a man! I’m 40,” at a reporter who wrote an article he thought was unfair. On the pro side, coach rants are the stuff of legend. Famous rants include “You play to win the game,” from former Jets coach Herm Edwards, “Talk to the trainer! Next,” from Mike Ditka during his brief and unsuccessful run coaching the Saints, and. “The Bears are who we thought they were!” from Dennis Green.
The undisputed king of the NFL coach press conference rant is former Saints and Colts head coach Jim Mora. His greatest hits include but are not limited to, “Playoffs?!” “Diddly poo” and “People are sick.” If you ever find yourself down and in need of a laugh, find a YouTube video with a compilation of Mora’s greatest press conference meltdowns. Mora is best remembered for incredulously saying, “Playoffs?!” but if you watch the full press conference you’ll see Mora melted down to the point that, “Playoffs?!” arguably wasn’t even in the top three of hilarious moments in that very press conference.
Less remembered is a rant from then-Oakland Raiders head coach Bill Callahan in 2003. The Raiders had gone to the Super Bowl the previous year in Callahan’s first season. Callahan inherited John Gruden’s infrastructure. Oakland lost the Super Bowl to Gruden and the Buccaneers, and the season that followed was a disaster.
Callahan had a long and distinguished career as an assistant offensive coach in the NFL. This includes a four year stop in New York where he molded the Jets offensive line into one of the league’s finest and molded D’Brickashaw Ferguson into a Pro Bowl player. Ferguson’s career was so successful that people forget how shaky his first two seasons were before he received Callahan’s mentorship.
Callahan is a highly respected assistant and has been for decades. He was in over his head as a head coach, however.
He did provide us with that one press conference. I couldn’t stop but think of Callahan’s words when watching the Jets lose to the Miami Dolphins to fall to 0-4.
It’s one thing to be short on talent. The Jets started the season with some pretty glaring holes on their roster. They also began the year with virtually no depth anywhere. The team could not afford any injuries. Unfortunately the injury bug has struck often at the early stages of the 2025 season. This was naturally going to limit this team’s upside.
My hope was that a new coaching staff would lead to a hard nosed football team that maxed out its talent and gave opponents everything they could handle. I was hoping to see a smart, disciplined football team.
Was this too much to me for ask?...
