Excerpts from Rex Ryan's postgame press conference:
On if a quarterback decision will be coming soon…
I think with the way all of them performed, they did outstanding. I though we might be a little more vulnerable with our offensive line situation. That’s why we took Sanchez out. That was my decision. I think he showed us everything we needed to see. He completed a vertical route, mid-range pass, he completed everything. The offense looked great.
I thought Kellen, with the one mistake in the pocket where he fumbled, other than that I thought he played well. I was really happy with Ainge.
On if he feels better about the wide receiver competition after tonight’s game…
I’ve been saying that, that the wideouts are pretty good. Brad Smith had a couple of real nice catches. Wallace [Wright] had a couple nice ones, ] got shaken up on one he should have caught, but I was happy with our offense, all of them. You have three starters out on your offensive line. I’m not an excuse guy at all, but those guys stepped up and played well.
On his first game as head coach…
It was good for awhile. I was calling the defense early in the game until the last series of the second quarter. That was business as usual. Schotty [Brian Schottenheimer], he ran the offense over there. He doesn’t have to check with me to do anything he wants. He made a great statement at half time. I just love the attitude. He said, "We are going to run the ball every snap until we get the first down". And he meant it.
The great thing is, most guys would shy away from third and long. You’re playing at home, most guys are going to have to throw it or get booed out of the stadium. He made that statement and this is what we preach the whole time. When we make a statement to our team, we are going to follow it up. That means, if we say a statement, "We are going to run the ball 50 times", we better have 50 carries. I was proud of Schottenheimer. I love his statement that he made to the offense. He was tired of that, he knew we could run the ball better than that and that’s why we kept running it to start the second half.
I'm really happy to hear Schotty feels this way about running the ball this season. The run game is definitely the strength of the team.