After coach Rex Ryan told Kerry Rhodes that he was demoting him from the starting safety spot he has held with the Jets since 2005, Rhodes did some serious soul searching Tuesday night.
“When I [was told] my mind was going into, ‘Well, maybe I should go do some other stuff,'” Rhodes said yesterday. “You just think about a lot of stuff. If your coach doesn’t think you’re doing enough for your team then you start to question yourself as a player.”
Rhodes was signed to a five-year, $33.5 million contract extension in April of 2008, so don’t look for him to be transitioning into a new career anytime soon, despite the fact that he’s dabbled in some modeling and movies off the field.
What Ryan is hoping for instead is a renewed sense of urgency and playmaking from Rhodes, who’s started all 74 games he’s played in the NFL, a streak that will come to an end Sunday when the Jets start Eric Smith against the Panthers at Giants Stadium.
“I know how much it hurts him and how much he wants to be out there with his guys,” Ryan said. “Sometimes more than money, more than anything else . . . you take something like that away from somebody, you’re going to get . . . there’s only two ways to react to it.
“I know he’s embarrassed by this, as am I, quite honestly,” Ryan added. “But I think he’s going to respond. I really do. I’m banking on Kerry Rhodes and how he’s going to approach it. Kerry knows what he has to do. Leave it at that. He knows what I expect.”