Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan is hoping to draw interest from the San Diego Chargers for their vacant head-coaching position.
The Chargers fired Marty Schottenheimer late Monday evening, sending shockwaves throughout the NFL. The reverberations also were felt in Owings Mills at the Ravens? facility. Ryan presided over the NFL?s top-ranked defense in 2006, one that had six different players named to the Pro Bowl.
Calls to Chargers president Dean Spanos and Ravens president Dick Cass to comment on a possible interview between Ryan and the Chargers were not returned Tuesday. A source close to the Ravens said Tuesday that Ryan had mentioned that the Chargers had asked about him.
Reached at the team?s training facility Tuesday, Ryan said he was keeping his fingers crossed about the Chargers? potential interest, but denied he had “officially” been contacted.
“I don?t know,” Ryan said of the Chargers? interest in him. “I sure hope so. ”
Ravens head coach Brian Billick expressed surprise last month as coaching vacancies throughout the NFL were filled without much interest being shown to Ryan. Billick said throughout the season that Ryan appeared poised to be a head coach, and many around the NFL thought it was a forgone conclusion that he would interview with a team.
Billick said he would not step in the way of one of his coordinators getting an offer to be a head coach, but said he has concerns about an assistant making a lateral move to another team.
“For a head-coaching job … it would have to be the most extreme of cases to step in and say no,” Billick said last month in a news conference.
Schottenheimer guided the Chargers to a 14-2 regular-season record, but the playoff-troubled coach once again stumbled this season in an AFC divisional loss to the New England Patriots.
Following the loss, Schottenheimer was offered an extension to his contract, which was to expire after next season, but he refused.
Schottenheimer?s relationship with Chargers general manager A.J. Smith was tense and deemed a “dysfunctional situation” by Spanos in a statement Monday.
Still, the San Diego job remains one of the most attractive in the NFL, with league MVP LaDainian Tomlinson, Pro Bowl linebacker Shawne Merriman and quarterback Philip Rivers leading a young, talented nucleus of players.
If Ryan was offered the position, he would need to quickly assemble a staff, which could impact many NFL teams that thought the head-coaching carousel had ended. Before Schottenheimer?s firing Monday, San Diego had already lost its offensive and defensive coordinators ? Cam Cameron and Wade Phillips, respectively ? to head-coaching jobs in Miami and Dallas.
