Mark Sanchez on Being Benched by Rex Ryan: ‘I Wanted to Fight Him’
Rex Ryan isn’t happy unless he is ruffling feathers. As we told you before, it is almost embarrassing how much he wants the league to hate his Jets. As for his own guys, Rex is known as a player’s coach. He rarely singles anyone out and most players love playing under him. That is one of the reasons it was so surprising to see Ryan call out Mark Sanchez last season and say he was open to benching him.
Sanchez’s recent interview with GQ Magazine gives us an idea of how much that situation truly pissed him off. When asked about Ryan giving Mark Brunell extra reps in practice late last season, Sanchez responded: “I wanted to fight him. I was really mad.”
The Jets quarterback then outlined what happened during practice when he pushed Brunell out of the way because Ryan hadn’t informed him he would be giving the backup quarterback some extra work. It may help explain why he wiped a booger on Brunell while standing on the sidelines.
“I was like, ‘(Rex) can come tell me,'” Sanchez says. “And (offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer) is like, ‘Come on, man. Don’t do that.'”
Sanchez has had some high points and plenty of low points through his first two seasons as the Jets starter, but no one likes to have their job taken from them. I’m with Mark on this one — if his play is so poor that he was in danger of losing his job the coach has a responsibility to tell him that directly. For the record: after seeing Rex’s new tattoo, I would probably put my money on Sanchez winning any type of fight between the two.
Chest bump to CBSSports.com’s Eye on Football blog for the story.
