Rex Ryan dismisses idea he claimed IK Enemkpali to spite Jets
Details from one of the most infamous moments in Jets history came to light Tuesday after ESPN’s Rich Cimini documented the IK Enemkpali fight with Geno Smith from 2015.
The altercation allegedly began on Oct. 11, 2015 when Enemkpali approached Smith about paying him back $600 for a flight he didn’t use and ended when Enemkpali broke Smith’s jaw with a sucker punch for refusing to pay. The Jets cut Enemkpali almost immediately after the fight, but the linebacker found a home with a familiar coach the next day.
Former Jets and then-Bills coach Rex Ryan claimed Enemkpali. To take things a step further, Ryan made Enemkpali a captain for the Bills’ Week 1 showdown with the Jets only a month after the fight.
Many, including the New York tabloids, saw the move as a jab at the Jets, who fired Ryan seven months earlier after six seasons with the team. Ryan, though, contends he made the move purely for football reasons.
“Everybody said I picked him up because he punched Geno. Man, that had absolutely nothing to do with it.” Ryan told Cimini. “We needed players. I.K. was a young kid that I thought had some talent and could develop. It had nothing to do with punching Geno.”
Whether or not that’s true is hard to tell. Ryan and the Jets drafted Enemkpali in the sixth round in 2014, Ryan’s final season in New York. Enemkpali tallied three combined tackles in six games. Enemkpali was inexperienced and unproductive in one season with the Jets and only marginally more impactful in his lone season in Buffalo (13 tackles in 11 games).
Naming Enemkpali the captain made everything look more suspicious. Ryan says he did that on purpose, but not because of the incident with Smith.
“The fact that I made him captain, yeah, that was kind of an F-you thing to do,” Ryan said, “but I did it every single week whenever somebody played their former team.”
