Seth Ryan out to ‘replicate’ excitement around Jets from dad Rex’s days — but with own coaching twist

Seth Ryan remembers running around the practice fields at the Jets training center as a teenager. That was back when his dad, Rex, was the team’s head coach. Now, Seth is the one with the coaching office.

Seth Ryan is now a 32-year-old who was named the passing game coordinator of the Jets as part of an overhaul of the team’s coaching staff in Aaron Glenn’s second year on the job. Ryan is the third generation of his family to coach the team. His grandfather, Buddy, was an assistant from 1968-75 and was part of the Super Bowl III coaching staff. 

“This is an organization I’ve been trying to get to for my career,” Seth Ryan said Wednesday after an OTA practice. “I grew up here, went to high school in Summit [N.J.]. My wife is from Jersey. You know, this means a lot to our family.”

Unlike his father and grandfather, who were defensive geniuses, the younger Ryan has been an offensive coach since he got his start with the Chargers in 2019. 

“In my family, we have kind of a saying with all the coaches,” Ryan said. “So my grandfather told my dad: I need you to be a little bit better than me. My dad told me: I need you to be better than me. So I chose offense to make sure that I knew that was going to happen.”

Ryan had been on the Lions coaching staff under Dan Campbell since 2021. It was there that he worked with Glenn, who was the Detroit defensive coordinator from 2021-24.

When Glenn overhauled his Jets staff in January, he hired Frank Reich as offensive coordinator and wanted Ryan to be part of his staff. 

“I’ll tell you what: Seth Ryan, just keep your eye on him,” Glenn said in late March at the league meetings. “Just telling you that right now, he’s going to be a hell of a coach [with] the ideas that he brings.” 

Ryan experienced two trips to the AFC Championship game when his father was the head coach. The team has not been back to the playoffs since and has a 15-year playoff drought it is trying to snap. 

“It’d be really unbelievable because I was here [during] those AFC Championship seasons,” Ryan said, “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, just the energy around the team. That’s something I hope to build and replicate here.”

Ryan said he originally planned on coaching defense like his father and grandfather, but he became a wide receiver at Clemson and started to gravitate toward offense. He was hired by the Chargers in 2019 under former Jets assistant Anthony Lynn. He then moved to Detroit in 2021 and learned under Ben Johnson there. 

Ryan said his father was thrilled to hear the news that he would be coming to Florham Park.

“I won’t repeat exactly what he said, but there was a lot of excitement. and he was like, man, I can’t wait for you to be there and hopefully turn this around and help be a part of that,” Ryan said.

When he walked back into the training center, the memories came back from 2009 when his father was hired. 

“The first time I walked back in the building and I saw my, you know, my office, I was just like, man, I remember all these memories of being a kid running around the indoor facility and just going out to practice,” Ryan said. “And, you know, some of the guys — David Harris, Nick Mangold, [D’Brickashaw Ferguson], [Darrelle] Revis, all those guys I grew up with. That first rookie minicamp practice … it’s just it’s just a blessing to be here.”

You can see some of Rex’s facial features in Seth, but the son definitely does not sound like his father. Asked if he was willing to guarantee a Super Bowl or promise a No. 1 ranking in the statistics like Rex used to, Seth Ryan laughed. 

“We’re gonna do the best that we can,” he said. “That’s what you’ll get from me.”