It isn’t fair to ask Mark Sanchez to take the Jets to the playoffs now — especially as he celebrates his 23rd birthday today. The Kid has played all of eight games in the NFL. He threw five interceptions in one of those games. His head coach, Rex Ryan, is a rookie. He lost his most dynamic playmaker, Leon Washington, for the season.
But we have no choice. The Giants are in the throes of a death spiral. The Knicks are still waiting for LeBron or Dwyane. The Rangers we’ll worry about after the Super Bowl. There is a severe Yankees hangover in this town now. We need someone, some team, to lift us back onto Cloud 9, to be our bridge to pitchers and catchers.
Sanchez has to be that someone. He has the charisma for the job, that much is obvious. Now we need his game to catch up to his charisma.
So we ask him to be for the Jets what Joe Flacco was for the Ravens a year ago as a rookie, what Matt Ryan was for the Falcons a year ago as a rookie.
Again, hardly fair. Flacco and Ryan, both of whom led rookie head coaches to the playoffs, didn’t have to endure their growing pains under the New York magnifying glass, where the silliest little thing — such as, oh, eating a hot dog on the bench during a game — can be chewed up for all to digest and spit out. Flacco and Ryan were exceptions to the rule, right? Ask JaMarcus Russell. Ask Brady Quinn. Ask Matt Leinart. Hell, ask John Elway and Troy Aikman and Terry Bradshaw and the Manning boys.
The Kid wanted to be in this market, he wanted to quarterback this team, he wanted to play for this head coach. He wanted the ball in his hands, and he wanted it right away. He was, and is, a young man in a hurry. It’s why he didn’t for one second consider a holdout. He knew that the job of New York Jets starting quarterback was waiting for him. So was $50 million.
The Kid could do without the busybody reporters trying to get him to say something, anything out of school, to trick him into a New York Post backpage guarantee headline, but he knows how to stiff-arm those city slickers, you betcha. He was schooled on the matter by Pete Carroll.
Other than that, he’s been living a dream. Sure, he posed without his shirt, but no one held that against him, and there is no doubt that he’s having a much better first season in New York than Alex Rodriguez did, isn’t he? No one — not even Bobby Bonilla — can knock the smile off The Kid’s face. Heck, how many quarterbacks can say they got a pep talk before their first game from Broadway Joe!
You want to know how lucky you are, Kid? OK, pop quiz: What is the third largest feline after the lion and tiger? A: the Jaguar. Just a small sample of what life would have been like for you had Eric Mangini still been Jets head coach, or drafted you for his Cleveland Clowns.
Joe Namath was 3-5-1 in his first nine starts as a rookie, completed 48.2 percent of his passes with 18 TDs and 15 INTs. The Kid is 4-4, completing 53.3 percent with eight TDs and 10 INTs.
Despite all the bravado and bluster and braggadocio pouring out of the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, I have felt all along that getting The Kid experience this season was more about making sure he was ready to win next season, when the new stadium opens for business. But it is fact that The Kid has a better running game than Eli Manning has, and a better defense, and a better schedule. And if Braylon Edwards can remember how to be a go-to-guy, a better set of targets.
It is a fact that Flacco, over the second half of his rookie season, threw nine TD passes and five INTs, after throwing five TDs and seven INTs over his first eight games. He wound up in the AFC Championship game.
So we raise the bar today. Manage the game, don’t lose the game, win a game or two if they ask you.
Be Flacco, Be Ryan.
Happy Birthday, Kid. Now go get those playoffs.
steve.serby@nypost.com