Chad Pennington knows what the boos Mark Sanchez heard last week sound like. Pennington knows what it’s like to be dissected on talk radio, blogs and in the newspaper.
No one knows what Sanchez is experiencing more than Pennington, a first-round pick of the Jets in 2000 who started at quarterback for six seasons in the same nonstop-news-cycle world Sanchez lives in.
“It really tests you as a person,” Pennington, now an analyst on FOX, said yesterday.
The home stadium has changed since Pennington left New York before the 2008 season, but the fans, media and expectations have not. Pennington has watched what Sanchez has endured, and he can relate.
He also has been impressed.
“I think that’s the best thing Mark Sanchez has done is dealing with the challenges of playing in New York,” Pennington said. “He seems to always bounce back from a bad performance. He seems to always handle questions really well. He seems to handle his teammates well.”
In other words, Sanchez is passing the test.
These past few weeks have shown the best of Sanchez. Not only has he led the Jets to back-to-back wins in the fourth quarter, he has shown poise off the field as the leader of a team nearly in crisis.
After the brutal loss to the Broncos, Sanchez shouldered the blame. Never mind that he was watching like the rest of us as Tim Tebow sliced through the Jets defense like a farm combine through a field.
Last week, everyone around the Jets, including coach Rex Ryan, seemed delusional when talking about the quarterback’s play — except for Sanchez. He gave a brutally honest assessment of his play.
Then came the boos. A few of Sanchez’s teammates took issue with Jets fans booing Sanchez during introductions before the game with the Bills. Sanchez handled it perfectly. He did not criticize the fans, defused the situation and moved on.
For all of his stumbles on the field, Sanchez has shown remarkable maturity in the face of the critics, especially since he is still 25 years old.
At 25, Pennington was watching Vinny Testaverde from the sideline. He had yet to make an NFL start. Sunday’s game will be Sanchez’s 50th start for the Jets.
Oh, yeah, and he’s won 30 of them, 11 with game-winning drives.
“He doesn’t get enough credit for understanding how to win football games,” Pennington said. “In his first two years, and even now, he understands how to win because of how their team is built. That is overlooked.”
Pennington points out the Jets are built to win with a strong defense and a complementary offense. That means Sanchez’s statistics are not always going to make fantasy football owners happy, but they should be enough to pile up Ws for the Jets.
“He should walk around with a T-shirt that says, ‘Who cares?’, and then underneath, ‘as long as we’re winning,’ ” Pennington said. “That’s the bottom line. In the NFL, there are no BCS rankings. There is no coaches’ poll. It strictly comes down to wins and losses.”
For Pennington, hearing about what Sanchez is going through brings some flashbacks. Pennington took over as the starter early in the 2002 season. Only three quarterbacks have ever thrown for more yards in a Jets uniform than Pennington. Yet there always were questions about his arm strength and, later, his durability. The team released him in 2008 after trading for Brett Favre.
Pennington chuckled when he heard about fans booing Sanchez during warmups, the kind of knowing chuckle you imagine former presidents exchange while recounting stories of their time in the Oval Office.
In 2007, the boos were the loudest for Pennington during a loss to the Bills, the team’s fifth straight. Eric Mangini benched him for Kellen Clemens the following week against the Redskins.
As Pennington walked onto the Giants Stadium field for that game, a fan shouted toward him from the stands.
“Chad, you’re great, you’re the second-best quarterback we’ve ever had other than Joe [Namath],” the fan yelled.
“I was thinking, ‘Wait a second. Last week, you guys were booing me out of the stadium. This week, I’m great because now I’m on the bench,’ ” Pennington said.
Sanchez returns to MetLife Stadium on Sunday to face the Chiefs. If the past two weeks are any indication, fans who want to boo him should do it early. By the end of the game, he’ll have them cheering.
Jets’ schedule full of wild cards
Of The five teams in the AFC tied at 7-5, the Jets have the easiest remaining schedule if you go by opponents’ records. The Jets’ remaining opponents have a record of 19-29 and none is currently over .500.
But a closer look reveals the Jets have some reason to worry. They play three teams that are hard to figure out. In two weeks, they face the Eagles in Philadelphia. At that point, the Eagles (4-8) could be making plans for the offseason or excited about being spoilers. They then face the 6-6 Giants, who are impossible to read, and the 4-8 Dolphins, who have won four of their last five games, in Miami.
The Raiders and Broncos have the most difficult slates, likely forcing them to battle solely for the AFC West title. That leaves the Bengals and Titans to grapple with the Jets for the final wild-card bid.
Cincinnati faces two division leaders, which inflates their opponents’ record (25-23). But the Texans, whom they play this week, are on their third quarterback.
Then they play the Ravens in Week 17 when Baltimore may be resting its starters.
The Titans also play two division leaders. They get the Saints this week, but in Nashville instead of New Orleans. The Saints are 3-3 away from the Superdome. If they are playing for their lives in Week 17, the Titans face the Texans, another team that could have nothing to play for.
Rex Ryan’s Jets benefitted at the end of 2009 from playing two teams that already clinched playoff berths. This year, they might need help from teams in that situation like the Texans and Ravens.
Not everybody ‘nose’ Pouha’s value on D
The Jets are a team of stars, which leads to some solid players getting overlooked. This season, nose tackle Sione Pouha has been a strength of the Jets defense, but has gone mostly unnoticed. Pouha, who is in his seventh season, has blossomed under the direction of Rex Ryan and defensive coordinator Mike Pettine.
Pouha has become one of their best run-stoppers and a leader on defense. He is sixth on the team in tackles despite rotating out of the game on most passing downs.
“He’s been just quietly so solid for us,” Pettine said. “He’s gotten better at all the little things, just understanding all the things that a nose tackle has to see in a game, all the different blocking patterns and the way teams attack a nose.
“And just kind of the tricks of the trade is where he has really progressed.”