INDIANAPOLIS — The Jets were certain the Road to Miami, The Road to Super Bowl XLIV, was going to start on Rex Ryan Drive and proceed to Mark Sanchez Way and then straight on to Sun Life Stadium. But there was a fork in the road at the AFC Championship game, and the heartbroken 30-17 losers turned off Peyton Manning Avenue, and never made it.
F-f-f-at’s all, folks.
No Joy in Jetsville.
No history. Ryan and Sanchez won’t be the first rookie coach and first rookie quarterback to win a Super Bowl together.
“This one stings,” Sanchez said. “It’s hard to swallow.”
No second Super Bowl. No Miracle on XLIVth Street.
No visit to the White House.
No Green Monday.
Blue Monday instead.
Just don’t blame The Kid.
Because Sanchez, aka the Sanchise, was heroic for the better part of three quarters, but when you’re playing against the great Peyton Manning (26-39, 377 yards, three TDs), you had better play four quarters, and you had better be at your best in the fourth quarter, and Wonderboy simply wasn’t ready to win a shootout with this generation’s Johnny Unitas.
PHOTOS: JETS FALL SHORT IN INDIANAPOLIS
“I’ve started becoming the quarterback that this team needs,” Sanchez said. “I started making the decisions that a quarterback who makes it to the AFC Championship game makes. I still got a long way to go — a long way to go. I haven’t arrived. . . . I haven’t figured it out, I haven’t made it. But none of that can happen without the great players we have on this team, so I’m very thankful to play with them, and we’ll build from everything that happened today and this long playoff run we had.”
When they met after the game, this is how the conversation went between Sanchez and Manning:
Sanchez: “Good job.”
Manning: “Heckuva game, and good luck.”
Sanchez: “Go win it, man. You deserve it, go win it.”
Just because the future isn’t now for the Sanchise (17-30, 257 yards, two TDs, one late interception) and the Jets doesn’t mean they don’t have a bright one tomorrow, because they do. Joe Namath, 66 years old, must have had flashbacks inside Lucas Oil Stadium when Sanchez-to-Braylon Edwards looked like Namath-to-Don Maynard 41 years ago. The Colts were leading 3-0 early in the third quarter when Sanchez motioned tight end Ben Hartsock to the right side of the formation. Sanchez, first down at his 20, pump-faked off play-action and there was Edwards, streaking past rookie cornerback Jacob Lacey down the left sideline, the Jets sideline, wide open. Edwards caught it at the Colts’ 41 and was gone.
“His route was just on point,” Sanchez said. “Just give him a chance on the throw.”
Later in the second, Brad Smith, finally throwing from the Wildcat, caught the Colts napping with a 45-yard rainbow to Jerricho Cotchery, and Sanchez, third-and-7 from the 9, rolled right and stood in the pocket long enough to get blasted. But he hit Dustin Keller against Melvin Bullitt and it was 14-6.
“I was proud of the way Dustin ran his route, physical route, and went out and got the ball,” Sanchez said.
But with the chance to make it 21-6 after Calvin Pace forced a Joseph Addai fumble that Jim Leonhard recovered at the Colts’ 29, the Jets went backwards, and conservative, and settled for 17-6. “It took a little wind out of our sails,” Sanchez said.
Manning’s quick-strike touchdown drive that made it 17-13 before the half was a little hurricane. It was men against boys after that for Manning, a boy against men in crunchtime for Sanchez in no small part because Shonn Greene, more explosive than Thomas Jones, was forced out with a rib injury on the first series of the second half.
It was clear, however, that the game was not too big for Sanchez. He was the only Jet who didn’t walk coming out of the tunnel before kickoff. He jogged out of the locker room, squealed “Whoo-hoo” and whirled around and bumped a bemused offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.
Darrelle Revis: “Mark Sanchez did great today. You could just see the potential in Mark Sanchez and how far he can take this team on the offensive side.”
Ryan: “Mark played great. You see that confidence that he has, he knows our offense, he’s comfortable, and when we come back we’ll be able to hit the ground running, which is obviously a lot different than how we entered this season.”
Brandon Moore: “He didn’t look like a rookie out there, not at all.”
He’s not Namath yet, but the Jets have their quarterback.
“It was a heckuva year; I’m one of the luckiest guys in the world,” Sanchez said. “But that fire’s still in there, it’s burning, and it’s hot. I want to win it. I think this organization does too, I know we have the right head coach . . . we have the right pieces . . . so we’ll be back.”
And one day, Superman will be wearing a green-and-white cape.
Mom says clean-cut Mark tops
The black playoff beard that Mark Sanchez had worn for good luck during the playoffs was gone. With his Super Bowl dream shattered, the rookie quarterback shaved it off after the Jets’ 30-17 AFC Championship game loss. As he headed over to hug his mother and father and brothers down the hall from the visiting locker room, he didn’t crack a smile when someone said he must feel much lighter with it gone.
But Ma Sanchez liked the fact that she could see all of her baby boy’s baby face.
“I love it!” Olga Sanchez said, and laughed. You like him better without? “Without, yeah,” she said, still chuckling. “That’s a mom for ya’.”
She was beaming with pride. “He did a very good job,” Olga Sanchez said.
Was it nerve-wracking watching her boy?
“Yeah,” she said, “but he was good; it’s all good,” she said.
His future’s pretty bright, I would say, huh?
“Yeah, it is,” she said.
GM: Weight until next year, Rex
The Jets obviously want Rex Ryan around for a long, long time.
They are concerned with his weight, and will push him to get on a diet that works over the offseason.
“We have some goals for the offseason program, and maybe that’s not just limited to the players,” general manager Mike Tannenbaum told The Post with a chuckle.
In all seriousness, Tannenbaum recognizes that something needs to be done. Coaching an NFL team is a highly stressful job, even if Ryan comes off sometimes as David Letterman.
The one saving grace, perhaps: Ryan won’t be going on any banquet circuit during the offseason, thanks to Peyton Manning and the Colts.