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Rex Ryan responds to Paul Alexander's criticism

"Here's how much we thought about them: Zero," Ryan said via NJ.com. "We could care less about what they were going to do, or anybody else. We don't care. And that's with any opponent."

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John Grieshop

Earlier this week, Cincinnati Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander told reporters that the New York Jets weren't abiding to an unspoken rule about blitzing.

"Notice he didn't bring that stuff when our starters were out there," said Alexander earlier this week. "We would have scored quicker. He wants to put the starting defense out there and blitz all that garbage against the third stringers and he feels good about it, then all the power to him."

Even Jason Campbell, who has been out since sustaining a bruised elbow against the Kansas City Chiefs, noticed the frequency in their blitzes.

"Some of it was a little extreme," Campbell said. "I remember back in the day, preseason games you didn't see any blitzes. Everyone was so vanilla all the way to the regular season. Now it's a different day and age and teams really just throw it all out there."

New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan was asked about those comments this week. And he had a very Ryanion response...

"Here's how much we thought about them: Zero," Ryan said via NJ.com. "We could care less about what they were going to do, or anybody else. We don't care. And that's with any opponent. Would it matter if the score was 14-0, or 0-0? That wasn't what we were going to do. We don't care who's in the game, who's not in the game. Again, that meant nothing to us. The fact of the matter is, they're upset because they didn't pick up our [blitzes]. We don't worry about what was good for them. We worry about how we're going to play."

In related news, the Cincinnati Bengals starters jumped out to a 17-3 lead on Saturday after the offense scored on three consecutive possessions. Had the starters played the entire game, they may have rivaled the 49 points that they tagged on Ryan's defense last year. Andy Dalton completed all eight passes with a handful of sweet receptions from A.J. Green and Mohamed Sanu. It was a thrashing. Awful, awful thrashing.

And in unrelated news, Ryan kicked a cute little kitten.