The Front Row with JIM LITKE Jan. 14, 2011

Lots of people would like to tell Rex Ryan and the Jets to shut up. Not his daddy. The patriarch of the trash-talking coaching clan says there are worse things than speaking your mind, no matter how much bulletin board material gets spewed.

"Guys get themselves ready to play all kinds of different ways," Buddy Ryan chuckled over the phone Thursday from his horse farm in Kentucky. "And the way I see it, talking is a hell of a lot better than puking."

Buddy has been out of the business for 15 years. He hasn't tasted crow in a long time.

"The only drawback," Ryan recalled ruefully a moment later, "is you better be able to back it up."

No word yet on whether the floor-cleaning crew at the Jets practice facility has been unusually busy ahead of Sunday's playoff matchup against the AFC rival Patriots at New England. But the occupants of the locker room certainly have done plenty of talking, beginning with Buddy's boy himself.

"This is about Bill Belichick vs. Rex Ryan," New York's brash coach said Monday, to the surprise of exactly no one. "There's no question. It's personal."

It's worth noting here that Rex Ryan comes by his chutzpah honestly. He and twin brother, Rob, the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns, trailed along in Buddy's wake while he worked as an assistant or head coach in a half-dozen NFL towns. The old man defined swagger. They rarely saw him hold his tongue.

"Here's the funny thing on that," Buddy said. "Everybody thinks I had something to do with it when the '85 Bears made that 'Super Bowl Shuffle' thing. It was 'Buddy told 'em this, Buddy told 'em that.' But I didn't even know they were making it."

So he would have stopped them?

"Hell, no," Buddy replied. "Wouldn't have made a difference anyway. ... But if you want a bunch that could talk the talk AND walk the walk, it was that one."

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org.