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The popular notion, as the Jets lose games and flounder and fire coaches and generally wonder why they're not as good as they believe themselves to be, is that Ryan needs to cease the bluster and the players need to stop doing interviews in which they answer questions honestly and say what's actually on their mind.

This is how twisted the coverage of sports has become. Instead of celebrating the people who actually tell us what they're thinking and don't hide behind some macho code of silence and secrecy designed to prevent the opponent from gaining an edge, we chastise them and tell them to shut up.

The flaw in this notion is the assumption that Ryan's act is, well, an act. We're so accustomed to seeing people put on masks and pretend to be something they're not that we can't imagine what it would look like to see someone real and unvarnished, standing there in front of the microphone just being himself. We can't conceive of the notion of a football coach who's giving it to us straight, because it seems there's no such thing. We wouldn't know what one looked like if it showed up in an oversized green sweatshirt and started making jokes in news conferences.

Well, it turns out it looks like Rex Ryan, who's not wearing a mask or putting on an act. This behavior reflects exactly what Ryan is. Talk to people who worked with him in Baltimore, they all say the same thing. They're not surprised at the way Ryan is talking and acting, because he's just being himself. Unfortunately, in today's sporting culture, wins and losses are the only things that mean anything at all. So Ryan's actual personality, along with the honesty and fun it brings to an otherwise super-stodgy league, doesn't mean anything because so far he's lost more games than he's won.

Somebody on the talk radio even suggested the other day that the Jets just don't do interviews this week. Take whatever fine the league wants to impose, but talk to no media whatsoever until after the game Sunday. The only thing that matters, this reasoning goes, is winning this week's game. So whatever it takes, yada, yada, yada.

This is as twisted as it gets. These are grown men, professional athletes. They don't get paid millions of dollars to play a game. They get millions of dollars because they play their games in public. Their job isn't merely to win -- part of their job is to promote their product and connect with their fans by giving interviews, in whatever way they see fit.

And if the Jets see fit to talk trash because their coach cultivates that, who are we to tell them to stop? The Jets love their coach. They would do anything for him. And you know what? Because he's real, and he's honest and he's sincere. The locker room reflects that, and to try and take that away from Ryan or his team would be a crime.

So if the man is going to cry in front of his team in the postgame locker room after losing to the Jaguars, or huff and puff his way through a news conference after a meaningless preseason loss to the Rams, or get into a verbal sparring match with a Dolphins linebacker or brag about how he's not scared of Bill Belichick, then I think it's best if we let him.

See, every coach gets fired. Unless you're Tony Dungy, it always ends badly. Whether Ryan flames out in a year or wins five Super Bowls, eventually he's not going to be the Jets' head coach anymore, and the overwhelming likelihood is that he'll leave on somebody else's terms.

The worst thing would be, on the day that that happens, for Ryan to look around and say, "Boy. I wish I'd done it my way. I wish I'd been true to myself."

He's doing it his way. And it's not an act. We should appreciate it. Heck, those of us who cover so many closed-off, boring, look-you-in-the-face-and-lie-to-you coaches, managers and star athletes should be flat-out rooting for him to succeed.