Gregg Rosenthal

Rex Ryan’s Jets embody what it means to be an underdog. They are built differently, play differently and act differently. The Jets aren’t just proving “the critics” wrong; they are running contrary to NFL norms. In a copycat league of coach drones and pass-happy offenses, the Jets are doing it their way. Rex’s way.

Let’s count them …

1. Trading up
Conventional wisdom on draft day is that trading back for extra picks is the smart play. It’s the safe move and gets rewarded with generous and meaningless next-day grades.

The Jets under General Manager Mike Tannenbaum have taken the opposite approach. They target a player they desperately want, and they move up to get him.

Consider this group of young Jets the team traded up to select: Darrelle Revis, David Harris, Dustin Keller, Mark Sanchez and Shonn Greene.

The first two guys are All Pros. The next three make up the team’s young offensive core.

Trading up takes organizational stones. You need to nail the pick and find the right guy or risk not having any team depth. The Jets personnel staff has been on quite a hot streak.

2. And a cornerback shall lead you
What was the last team built around a cornerback? The 1994 49ers with Deion Sanders?

Ryan arrived in New York calling Darrelle Revis the best cornerback in the league. The third-year player has backed up his coach’s talk.

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Yes, it’s a passing league. But Ryan realizes then it’s also a pass defense league. With Revis erasing top receivers and allowing the Jets to send double coverage elsewhere, the Jets led the league in pass defense by over 30 yards per game.

The Jets give up 5.4 yards per pass attempt. Next best in the league was 6. Including the playoffs, the Jets have given up 11 touchdowns through the air and picked off 20. Basically they turn their opponent into Jake Delhomme. (Or Mark Sanchez.)

Give Ryan credit for building around Revis and his back seven. The team lacks a dominant pass rush and finished only 18th in sacks. Yet they are the best defense in the league.

The prevailing NFL wisdom says it’s all about the pass rush. Once again, the Jets swim against the stream.

3. What passing league?
The NFL resembled the old AFL in 2009 more than any time since the merger. At times, it’s looked more like the Arena Football League.

Ten quarterbacks topped 4,000 yards; five years ago only two quarterbacks did. The league as a whole had more passing yards than ever.

We heard all season that you need to throw to win. That’s mostly true. The other three teams in the final four prove it, as Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees averaged 34 touchdowns and 4,363 yards between them. The Saints and Vikings were the top two scoring teams in football.

While the rest of the league was throwing bombs, the Jets have won by making their rookie quarterback as inconsequential as possible. Mark Sanchez has shown flashes that he’ll be a good pro, but he has struggled like nearly every rookie quarterback does. Sanchez was one of the five worst NFL quarterbacks in completion percentage and TD: INT ratio. The only qualifying players below him in QB rating: two other rookies, Jake Delhomme, and JaMarcus Russell.

4. Running fools
The Jets have shown there are other ways to win. They called 82 more rushing plays than any other team during the regular season for a total of 607. They called 241 more runs than their AFC Championship opponent Sunday.

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In the past, there was a strong correlation between rushing yards and winning. Quality teams played from ahead, so naturally they ran the ball more.

Even that maxim has been tested in today’s NFL. The Jets finished first in rushing this season. The next three teams — Tennessee, Carolina, and Miami — didn’t even make the playoffs. (New Orleans finished seventh, Minnesota finished 13th, and Indianapolis 31st.)

Clearly, you don’t need a great running attack to win. But the Jets built their offense around their ground game. The team’s high-priced offensive line includes four first-round picks, three Pro Bowlers, and two expensive free agent acquisitions.

The Jets lost their most dynamic running back Leon Washington for the season and improved. Now they are all power, all the time. Thomas Jones and Shonn Greene have helped the Jets average 200 rushing yards per week during their four game win streak.

5. Not playing favorites
Like most Jets fans and players, Rex Ryan said it was a crime that Thomas Jones didn’t make the Pro Bowl. Then Ryan essentially made Jones a backup in the playoffs.

The Jets turned to rookie third-round pick Greene because he has fresher legs and he’s more explosive. He leads playoff rushers with 260 yards, almost half of his regular-season total. Jones has 75.

Ryan is as sentimental a coach as you’ll see, but he’s not afraid to make unsentimental lineup choices. Star safety Kerry Rhodes was benched late in the season after consistently missing tackles. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been a star to begin with, but Ryan knew how to get Rhodes’ attention. The image-conscious five-year veteran earned his way back into the starting lineup.

The Jets also are smart enough not to play a big name just to justify a draft pick. Vernon Gholston was the sixth pick of the 2008 draft and rarely sees the field. If Ryan can’t get something from the linebacker, the kid is a bust. Better to not waste valuable snaps on him.

6. Tackling
The Jets are called a throwback team because of their strong running game and great defense. Overlooked in that equation is what a terrific tackling team they have. The Jets wrap up.

This is fundamental football, yet most teams struggle with it. Just watch any highlights show and count the missed tackles. The Jets limit big plays by taking the opposition down on the first try. This comes from a combination of coaching, attitude, and finding the right players.

The Colts, while far lighter and faster, also excel at the basics. The difference between the two teams is that New York punishes defenders. It’s a physical sport and the Jets are the most physical team left. The Chargers didn’t seem to know what hit them.

7. Trash talking
At some point, NFL coaches decided that revealing too much to the press was dangerous. Forget about injury information. Coaches became wary of revealing that they are human. If the media really knows you, the logic said, they could use that information against you. Bland was best.

Rex Ryan doesn’t care. He invites criticism, trash talks, looks for headlines, fights battles, talks about crying, makes jokes and generally has the New York media eating out of the palm of his hand. He sells.

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One day, some of his punchlines will be used against him. But Ryan has figured it out: What difference does it make?

Winning and losing is all that matters, and Ryan is going to have fun along the way. He opened his first press conference talking about his expectations to visit the White House as Super Bowl champ. He picked a fight with Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder, said he wouldn’t kiss Bill Belichick’s rings, and declared the Jets Super Bowl favorites at the start of the playoffs.

This probably doesn’t have a lot to do with why the Jets win on Sunday. The players all swear loyalty to Ryan and sound happy to have Eric Mangini gone, but the team’s record was the same in 2008.

If nothing else, Ryan does a nice job swallowing up so much of the New York spotlight and heat that his players don’t get distracted.

Standing in front of a microphone, Ryan knows exactly who he is. He doesn’t try to hide it.

When his players step on the field, they know exactly who they are. The Jets operate differently than the rest of the league, which is how they like it. Now try to stop them.

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