Rex Ryan Turned Himself In to Nashville Police — Then They Revealed What Happened at the Next Red Light

It was shortly before midnight last Thursday on Broadway, Nashville’s famous strip of neon and music. Two people were crossing from Fourth Avenue with the walk sign lit, police said.

Then a pickup truck swung right from Fourth Avenue and rolled straight over their feet.

According to Metro Nashville police, the truck didn’t stop. It kept going down Broadway — until a red light did what the driver hadn’t. And when the two pedestrians caught up with it and waved the driver down, they found themselves face to face with a man millions of football fans would know on sight.

The Face at the Wheel

On Wednesday morning, former NFL head coach Rex Ryan, 63, surrendered for booking on six outstanding misdemeanor warrants, Metro Nashville Police said in a media release.

The charges are all about what police say happened in the seconds after the truck hit those two people: two counts of leaving the scene of an accident, two counts of failure to give information or render aid, and two counts of failure to obey a traffic control signal. A judicial commissioner set his bond at $6,000, and jail records show he was released from custody early Wednesday, according to the New York Post.

Both pedestrians suffered minor injuries, police said. The truck ran over both victims’ feet and also made contact with one person’s leg.

These are charges, not convictions. Ryan has not been found guilty of anything, and no public comment from him had been reported in the coverage we reviewed by Wednesday afternoon.

What Happened at the Red Light

The most startling part of the police account isn’t the turn. It’s what came next.

“The pedestrians said the vehicle kept going, but stopped for the red light at Broadway and Representative John Lewis Way where they waved down the driver (Ryan),” the department’s release says. “They said he stepped out of the truck to argue with them, got back in, and drove away.”

That is the version the two pedestrians gave police: not a driver who didn’t notice, but one who got out, argued and left. Nashville’s WSMV described it the same way — the pair confronted the driver at the light, he argued with them, then returned to his truck and drove off.

But the two people on that sidewalk did one thing that turned a late-night argument into a criminal case. Before the truck pulled away, they took pictures — of its license plate and of the driver.

The plate, police said, was registered to Ryan. By Wednesday morning, there were six warrants with his name on them.

A Big Name on Nashville’s Most Famous Street

For anyone who followed the NFL in the last two decades, the name needs no introduction. Ryan coached the New York Jets for six seasons, from 2009 to 2014, and led them to back-to-back AFC Championship Games, according to Fox News. He then spent nearly two seasons as head coach of the Buffalo Bills before moving into broadcasting.

He has worked as an ESPN analyst since April 2017, Fox News reported, and he never lost the brash style that made him a fixture of New York back pages. In January 2025 he was lined up to interview for his old Jets job, having said on a podcast: “I think I have some unfinished business, especially with that franchise.”

It isn’t yet clear why he was in Nashville this month, the New York Post reported, though he had just appeared on the popular podcast “Bussin’ with the Boys,” which is filmed in Music City.

The Internet Remembered Something Else

Once the arrest news broke, the jokes started — and they all pointed to the same place.

In 2010, while Ryan was coaching the Jets, Deadspin published videos showing him rubbing a woman’s feet, TMZ noted, and it became national news. The Post’s headline on Wednesday ran with it: “Feet are getting Rex Ryan into trouble again.” TMZ called the whole thing “ironic, if nothing else.”

For the two people hurt on Broadway, of course, there was nothing funny about a pickup truck rolling over them.

Not His First Night on Broadway

And there is a twist: this isn’t the first time Nashville police have looked into Rex Ryan over a night on that very same street.

In June 2017, a 30-year-old tourist from Colorado named Matthew Havel told Metro Nashville police that Rex and his brother Rob Ryan had assaulted him at Margaritaville on Broadway, Fox 17 reported at the time. Havel claimed that Rex grabbed at his neck from across the table and said it was unprovoked. Video filmed from outside showed the Ryans in a scuffle with another patron, and the girlfriend of the man who shot it told the station the patron had thrown a margarita at Rex Ryan’s face.

Havel filed a misdemeanor assault complaint. Four months later, a Nashville police spokesperson told TMZ that the district attorney had declined to move forward with charges. The case was closed, and the Ryans were never prosecuted.

This time it isn’t a bar dispute over a thrown drink. There are two injured pedestrians, a police release, a license plate — and photos taken at a red light on the same famous street.

Ryan built a career on never backing down from an argument. According to police, the argument on Broadway lasted about as long as a red light. What happens in court is the part that hasn’t been written yet.