Jets head coach Rex Ryan and GM Mike Tannenbaum, who starred in a reality series this summer when HBO’s “Hard Knocks’’ featured the team at training camp, are taking it up another notch and going to network television.
Ryan and Tannenbaum were in Los Angeles this week to film an episode of “CSI: NY,” a hit CBS drama.
The two were on set Wednesday to shoot a scene for the show before traveling to Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine, where both are scheduled to meet with the media Thursday.
“‘CSI’ was hilarious,” Ryan told the NFL Network on Thursday. “We assumed we were going to be extras and they said, ‘No, we’ve got some lines for you.”
In the episode, which is scheduled to air in the spring, guest stars Peter Fonda, Ryan and Tannenbaum play themselves. They meet up with Gary Sinese and Eddie Cahill, two of the show’s regular cast members, on a Manhattan street.
Ryan said in one take he had trouble getting out of the cab.
With the Jets having gone to consecutive AFC Championship games, the popularity and profiles of both Ryan and Tannenbaum have continued to grow, making them an attractive get for the network series.
The majority of Jets regular-season games are televised by CBS and it’s believed the connection was made because Tannenbaum is friendly with one of the CBS executives involved with the show.
“Mike Tannenbaum was a diva, he really was,” Ryan told NFLN. “He had the makeup and the hair going.
“We had a great time.”
The previous Jets coach to appear on a popular TV series was Eric Mangini, who in 2007 made a non-speaking cameo in HBO’s “The Sopranos,” eating dinner at a restaurant when Tony Soprano, the show’s main character, referred to him as “Mangenius.”
While at CBS, Ryan and Tannenbaum also visited the set of The Defenders’’ and met star Jim Belushi.