Meet Your 2008 NFL Head Coaching Candidates: Rex Ryan

With NFL head coaching jobs beginning to open, we'll profile some of the candidates to fill those openings.

Name: Rex Ryan

Current job: Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator

Past jobs: Assistant coach at Eastern Kentucky (1987-88), New Mexico Highlands (1989), Morehead State (1990-93), Arizona Cardinals (1994-95), University of Cincinnati (1996-97), Oklahoma (1998).

Pros: With a decade of experience as an NFL assistant and another decade as a college assistant, he's one of the most experienced coaches in football who has never gotten a head-coaching chance. His defenses always play a tough, aggressive scheme.

Cons: No head coaching experience. Made some questionable decisions in his highest-profile game this year, against the Patriots.

Conclusions: Ryan is one of those guys who's mentioned as a candidate every year but never seems to break through. The Falcons are expected to interview him this week, though, and he seems to have a fairly good chance at this job, as well as possibly some other openings that could come up in the next few days.