All across the tortured precincts of Jetsville late Saturday night, it was the call that appalled most of them — for the quarterback, it was the execution. Third-and-5 for the Jets, three minutes to play, one-point lead on the Colts. You get a first down there, you force the Colts to burn the rest of their timeouts, you bleed the clock to the 2-minute warning.
There are a dozen smart plays there: a pass in the flat, or to a man out of the backfield. A bubble screen. A quick out. Maybe a running play off a trap, if you can catch the Colts napping. A quarterback draw. A bootleg.
The Jets? On third-and-5, ballgame in the balance, Mark Sanchez dropped back, barely acknowledged his safety valves. He had Braylon Edwards sprinting down the right sideline, covered one-on-one by Jacob Lacey. And Edwards had a step, was open, was right there.
“He could’ve run right out of the stadium,” Sanchez said yesterday. “Or just fallen down, taken a knee, and we win the game.”
That didn’t happen. On a night in which Sanchez was crazy wild with his throws, more Tony Montana than Joe Montana, he was crazy wild with this one, too. Edwards never came close to catching it. Fourth down. Peyton Manning would get the ball back, plenty of time, plenty of timeouts, and he followed the script perfectly, and soon the Colts had a 16-14 lead, and those tortured precincts of Jetsville all had grown quiet and miserable and still.
Only a funny thing happened that would soon revive those pockets of pessimism, and that should instill at least a healthy dollop of hope for the challenge that awaits the Jets this weekend. Sanchez led the Jets on a last-second march. He completed a couple of quick passes. Then he made the most talked-about throw of the night — another toss to Edwards, this one a shorter toss, a simpler route, but every bit as critical as the first one would’ve been.
And this time, he completed it.
Thirty or so seconds later, Nick Folk kicked a game-winning field goal, and the Jets poured onto the field, and they started celebrating and chirping and probably won’t pipe down until they take the field in Foxborough on Sunday afternoon. A good game. A good win. All of it due, in large part, to a quarterback who doesn’t believe in being gun-shy.
“Confidence is the key for playing the position,” Sanchez said in front of his locker at the Jets’ practice facility in New Jersey. “You have to have it. You can’t dwell. You can’t linger. You have to be ready to step up and make the next play when it’s there.”
Consider the 45-3 thrashing the Pats laid on the Jets 51⁄2 weeks ago the macrocosm of Sanchez’s first throw to Edwards last week; Sanchez is hoping that this week’s rematch is a microcosm of the second.
In that Dec. 6 game, Sanchez struggled mightily, hitting just 17 of his 33 passes, throwing three interceptions, amassing a feeble rating of only 27.8.
His coach and his coordinator have taken great pains to remind people that many of Sanchez’ struggles were the product
of the Jets being behind 17-0 at the end of a quarter and 24-3 at the half, and that is true to a point.
But even Sanchez isn’t buying. Asked about the errors he collected and compounded that night, he smiled and said softly, “How much ink do you have?” Then he proceeded
to do what quarterbacks are supposed to do: put the burden of proof on himself.
“If we’re going to win,” he said, “I have to play a good game.”
In truth, Sanchez is in as good a place as he could ask to be heading into this game. His shoulder, he insisted, feels as good as it has felt in weeks. He has a 3-1 lifetime record as a playoff quarterback. And there isn’t a soul anywhere who can question his mettle. He isn’t afraid to fail.
And when he does, he doesn’t mind taking a stab at redemption. Good thing.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com