Analysis: Major flaws around Rex Ryan led to his demise with the Jets

There may never again be a more perfect coach for New York than Rex Ryan was for the Jets for six seasons.

He had the perfect personality for the nation's largest media market. He was boisterous and brash. He talked in sound bites, sometimes talked trash and was the perfect foil in the AFC East for buttoned-up Patriots coach Bill Belichick.

Ryan's problem was never with the media, never with the public. It was never in the locker room – where his players loved him. His problem was never in coaching defense. Even this year, when the Jets won just four games, Ryan's defense finished in sixth in the NFL in yards allowed and Top 5 rushing yards allowed.

Ryan was fired as head coach in large part because of personnel failures around him, and failures by himself and his coaching staff to ever truly develop a quarterback, despite several attempts.

It didn't work with Mark Sanchez, whom the Jets traded up to draft in the first round in 2009. With a run-heavy offense and one of the league's best defenses, Sanchez quarterbacked the Jets to two AFC championship games. When the pressure was placed on Sanchez to shoulder the load of the offense, he and the Jets – and therefore Ryan -- failed.

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Ryan got another chance to groom a quarterback when the team drafted Geno Smith in the second round in 2013. It hasn't worked, but Smith will be a Jet in 2015, and Ryan will not.

Smith has now started 19 games, and for his career is completing only 57.5% of his passes. He's thrown 25 touchdowns but 34 interceptions.

The final game Smith would play for Ryan would be perhaps his best – he completed 80% of his passes on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins, and threw for three touchdowns and no interceptions – but it was too late. Surely it will make Jets fans – and maybe even Ryan himself – wonder what could have been if Smith could have done that sort of thing earlier, and more often.

Maybe everything would have been different, and maybe Ryan could have stayed.