As Bart Scott was talking to writers and television reporters last week, a teammate walked by in a towel and tried to gingerly reach something in his locker, which was next door to the new Jets linebacker’s. Scott glanced over and paused.

“Let’s get some pasties, we don’t want to get nipples in the shot,” Scott joked.

With that kind of humor and media savvy, this could be the start of a beautiful relationship between Baltimore’s Mad Backer and New York City.

On Rex Ryan, Baltimore defensive coordinator who is now his head coach:

“Rex’s background has been he started as a D line coach over there,” Scott said. “Whenever you’re a position coach and you start off that was you have a more affectionate relationship with your players because you interact with them every day… You almost feel like you know him because you’re going to get conversation at the lunch table. You’re going to get conversation in the training room, so it’s easy to have an an open two-way communication with him and that kind of communication with him. You don’t look at him as the head coach—you give him the head coach respect—but you look at him as a friend as well.”

Ryan showed up at midnight at the start of free agency, where he was greeted by Scott’s dogs.

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“We played so he could get a head coaching job,” Scott said. “He deserved it, it was long overdue. I want to do everything in my power to make sure he’s successful.”

This is Scott’s first offseason training program. In the past he has worked with a personal trainer at home, but this season he wants to get that team bonding going early.

“Because of the chemistry,” Scott said. “Because I’m coming to a situation where I’m not familiar with the players so we have to communicate with each other, break barriers down and go through that when we get to camp.”

That said, Scott would not have fit happily into former coach Eric Mangini’s system. There were a lot of rules, like Giants coach Tom Coughlin’s rule about players being at meetings five minutes early. Scott said he wasn’t crazy about rules for the sake of rules, and said he’d prefer to have the meeting set for, say 6:55 instead of 7. Don’t play mind games, he said, just let him know what’s expected.

This clip will make you laugh.

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“How does that hurt me or help me or the team?” Scott said. “All that says is you have power and you’re expressing it. Let’s not stress each other out with stuff that has nothing to do with winning.”