Rex Ryan tells Santonio Holmes to pipe down on quarterback controversy ... - New York Daily News

Robert Sabo/New York Daily News

Rex Ryan is smiling here, but most likely not about WR Santonio Holmes.

CORTLAND â€" Tim Tebow didn’t say anything inflammatory when he arrived at Jets camp â€" he wouldn’t even admit his goal this summer is to beat out Mark Sanchez â€" but the quarterback drama prompted Rex Ryan to tell Santonio Holmes to shut up, with Darrelle Revis backing up his coach.

The Jets’ three-ring circus, with Tebowmania the headliner, relocated to upstate New York on Thursday, and all that was missing was the cotton candy, popcorn and the dancing elephants.

The sizzling quarterback controversy prompted a first in the Ryan era: he publicly took on one of his own players. It happened to be Holmes, the Jets’ No. 1 knucklehead, who was the lucky recipient of a five-year, $45 million contract last season and then did nothing to earn it.

Holmes started this latest mess when he recently was asked by the NFL Network if a two-quarterback system can work in the NFL.  “No,” Holmes said. “I don’t think so, because you have to let one quarterback get in the rhythm of a game.”

Of course, Ryan is basing so much of the Jets’ success this season on making the two-QB approach work with Sanchez, entrenched for now as the starter, with Tebow as the Wildcat QB, which will take snaps away from Sanchez.

Holmes wouldn’t have been asked that question if Drew Stanton was Sanchez’s backup, which was the original plan until Denver signed Peyton Manning and traded Tebow to the Jets. Completing the three-team QB swap, Jets then traded Stanton to the Colts about five minutes after signing him as a free agent.

Ryan, who was irritated, then unloaded on Holmes in an interview with ESPN earlier this week when he was asked about the wideout’s quarterback-assessment skills. “I brought Santonio in here to be a receiver. Not to be the offensive coordinator. And that’s the way it is,” he said. “I love Santonio, but if I wanted to hire him as our offensive coordinator, we would’ve.”

Ryan added to those comments Thursday: “We will make those decisions. We will always do what we think is in the best interest of our football team.”

Revis, the Jets’ best player, wasn’t aware of the comments by Holmes or Ryan until he was informed by the Daily News. His reaction? “Rex is right,” he said. “Santonio is a receiver. So he has to play receiver. He has to stick to that. Rex usually doesn’t call out his players. Maybe that might have been a moment where he needed to stand up for Mark and Tim.”

None of this is Tebow’s fault. Surely, he would have preferred to still be in Denver as the Broncos’ starting quarterback rather than as Sanchez’s caddie, Wildcat novelty and special teams sideshow. But his presence seems to have everybody on edge.