Rex a chip off the old blocks: his dad (Buddy) and Ditka

Some day I'll get tired of New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan's bluster.

For now, though, enough of him isn't nearly enough.

As the son of former Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, Rex is like the daughter of the mother I had a crush on in high school.

Buddy helped make the Bears fun a quarter-century ago; Rex helps make the entire NFL fun right now.

The Jets are reminders of what the Bears were like back then but haven't been close to lately, in style or substance.

Remember the relationships between the 1985 Bears and their fans, of Buddy Ryan and his defensive players, of the "46 Defense" and Chicago?

Stop me if I break into, "The Way We Were."

Anyway, you can refer to the Jets as Buddy's boy's boys. Rex's act and defense both play in New York like his father's did here.

"Now he's turning into Howard Stern," the Las Vegas Review-Journal quoted a sports book director as saying of Rex. "He's a shock jock."

This was after Ryan insisted he would be shocked if the underdog Jets lost to the Colts in today's AFC championship game. Of course, he previously insisted his team should be favored in every playoff game it played.

Rex Ryan is brash like Buddy. The son's declarations come with more winks and smiles, but he believes in himself as much as his dad did.

The Kansas City Star recently quoted Rex Ryan as saying about being a coach's son, "You're not intimidated by anyone."

That goes double for a coach's son with Buddy Ryan as a father and who spent time around Mike Ditka, the '85 Bears' head coach.

"Ditka was similar to my dad," Rex Ryan recalled. "He had a great belief in himself, was a tough guy, and that's the way his team was."

My goodness, with daddy and Ditka as influences, an impressionable young man had no choice but to turn out the way Rex Ryan did.

A Philadelphia columnist told me when Buddy was Eagles head coach, "The owner gave him an unlimited budget and he exceeded it." Buddy famously declared upon arriving in Arizona as Cardinals head coach, "There's a winner in town!"

No wonder when Rex Ryan hit New York he said, "I never came here to kiss Bill Belichick's rings. I came here to win."

I once sat in Buddy Ryan's office in the old Halas Hall the week of a game against San Francisco, My mistake was referring to 49ers head coach Bill Walsh as a genius.

Buddy sure didn't wink and smile. He bristled and harrumphed. Before I left, the storyline changed from Buddy's "46 Defense" trying to cope with Walsh's "West Coast Offense" to two equals matching wits.

Those Bears of Buddy and Ditka didn't invent swagger. They reinvented it by making "The Super Bowl Shuffle" before they won anything.

Defensive tackle Steve McMichael said of the Bears, "Maybe there's been a better defense sometime, but they must've played in Russia."

Linemate Dan Hampton said when asked before a game what surprises the Bears had planned, "None. The surprise will come when they see how hard we hit."

Rex Ryan's Jets might dust that one off if they make it to the Super Bowl.

mimrem@dailyherald.com