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A week after the Jets drafted Mark Sanchez in 2009, he participated in a mini-camp that gave his coaches their first glance at the man they had chosen with the No. 5 pick in the draft.
“He’s got a little swagger in him,” Jets coach Rex Ryan said then. “It’s easy to follow someone who has confidence in himself.”
That swagger and that confidence, if it every truly existed, has vanished. In his third season, Sanchez appears to be overwhelmed by expectations, unsure of how to handle veteran receivers and unable to take the next step in his development.
Of all the questions surrounding the Jets right now, and there are enough to fill a Jeopardy game board, the biggest is this: How good is Mark Sanchez?
At times, he looks like the franchise quarterback Jets fans have been waiting for since Joe Namath went to Los Angeles. At others, he looks like the second coming of Richard Todd.
The 24-year-old has played 36 regular-season games, a decent sample size. He has 37 touchdowns and 38 interceptions. He has completed 54.7 percent of his passes. Basically, the definition of mediocre. He does have four playoff victories, but the Jets need more from him in the four months leading up to January.
Sanchez did walk into a difficult situation with the Jets. Most quarterbacks selected high in the draft join bad teams. The Jets traded up to get Sanchez at No. 5, and he walked into a veteran team that had won nine games the year before. Unlike Matthew Stafford or Cam Newton, Sanchez had to navigate a locker room filled with veterans.
The Jets also made the decision to play Sanchez immediately rather than allow him time to watch. Aaron Rodgers, who did not start until his fourth season, experienced his growing pains in a classroom. Sanchez has gone through his on national TV.
In some ways, Sanchez is a lot like Mets third baseman David Wright. Both had the team’s hopes pinned on them the second they walked through the door. They tantalized with some big moments, but both leave fans questioning if they can ever live up to their original dreams for them.
This season, the training wheels were supposed to come off. Ryan talked about “airing it out” and the Jets brought in veteran receivers Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason, hoping for more three-receiver looks.
Through the first four weeks, the Jets stuck with that plan with mixed results. Sanchez had two games with more than 300 yards passing, but he also threw five interceptions. The team went 2-2, with neither loss falling on Sanchez’s head. The defense blew the Raiders game and the offensive line cost them against the Ravens. But that Ravens game rattled Ryan enough that he proclaimed the team would go back to running the ball last week, despite the Patriots being ranked last in pass defense.
For three quarters Sunday, Sanchez threw short passes and handed the ball off. He had 70 yards passing before the numbers got padded in the fourth quarter with the team trailing by 13 points.
If the Jets are going anywhere this season, Sanchez is going to have to lead them. It is time for offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to put his trust in Sanchez. Let him throw the ball down the field. Take some chances. Sanchez looks most comfortable in late-game situations when he’s running the no-huddle. Schottenheimer needs to find a way to recreate those situations earlier in games.
Most of all, the Jets need to restore the swagger and confidence they saw in Sanchez when they drafted him. After Sunday’s game he stood in a corner as Ryan talked to reporters. Still in uniform, Sanchez looked like a Pop Warner player waiting for his ride home.
“We’re used to winning and we haven’t been on a three-game skid like this in a while,” Sanchez said. “We’re going to see what a lot of guys are made of on this team.”
Starting with you, No. 6.
Schedule foretold slump
At 2-3, the panic button is being pressed all over Jets Nation, but there needs to be some perspective on the team’s three-game losing skid. The Jets just went through the toughest stretch on their schedule.
When the schedule was released in April, the three straight road games jumped off the page. It turned out to be even worse for the Jets than anticipated. The Raiders are better than people thought they would be. The Ravens defense put on a clinic. And the Patriots offense is an early-season machine, as usual. The Jets also endured the first two-legs of this road swing without center Nick Mangold.
“It was a tough stretch,” left guard Matt Slauson said. “All three teams are really good teams. But that isn’t an excuse. We need to win on the road. We need to win against the good teams. If we don’t win against good teams, we aren’t going to go anywhere.”
Slauson is right. But the schedule dictates more in the NFL than any other league. The Jets need to fatten up when they face inferior teams and win their home games. They have done that so far, and now the winless Dolphins come to MetLife Stadium.
Spygate sequel gets squashed
The website Pro Football Talk started a mini-controversy yesterday that the Jets quickly squashed. The site put up a screen grab of a Jets employee shooting video from the sideline during Sunday’s loss to the Patriots.
The Jets said in an email that the cameraman “works for Jets TV … and shoots footage for our team programming.”
So, any hope of “Spygate 2” by Patriots fans were crushed.
* The Jets signed cornerback Ellis Lankster, according to his agent, and waived linebacker Eddie Jones. The team lost cornerbacks Donald Strickland (head) and Isaiah Trufant (hamstring) in Sunday’s loss.