Organized team activities — OTAs as they’re termed in NFL vernacular — are usually non-events.
They are voluntary pad-less practices, lost in the soft part of the league’s offseason calendar between the April draft and June veteran mini-camp and long before the arrival of training camp in late July.
Yet yesterday’s Jets OTA at their practice facility in Florham Park, N.J., where reporters were given a first look at newcomer Tim Tebow in a Jets uniform, felt like a main event. If you didn’t know any better, the overcrowding of media could have convinced you there was a game scheduled for Sunday.
Consider this: The players had not yet filed into the locker room after completing their two-hour OTA session yesterday when the news bulletin had already aired on ESPN — Tebow had thrown two interceptions.
In a 7-on-7 drill. This was news. Honest.
We all need to get used to it.
Mark Sanchez certainly had better get used to it, because Tebow’s presence amps up the pressure on the Jets’ incumbent quarterback immeasurably.
Despite the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil tones coming from Sanchez, Tebow and Rex Ryan yesterday, this is the way it’s going to be until further notice: There will be an overblown reaction to everything Tebow does from brushing his teeth to choosing which breakfast cereal to eat to whom he’s spotted hanging out with off the field to every play he makes on the field.
The polarizing Tebow dynamic places enormous pressure on Sanchez, who has already been the most scrutinized player in New York since his arrival as the Jets’ first-round pick four years ago.
How Sanchez handles the pressure of Tebow’s presence and all that comes with it will be as much a determining factor to the Jets’ success as any this season.
Yesterday was a good day for Sanchez, who threw the ball well — better by a long shot than Tebow did.
But there will be bad days, too, rough patches during the season when anxious Jets fans will be chanting Tebow’s name.
Those days will come and Sanchez will either be tough enough to stave them off and show he is the better quarterback or he will be swallowed up by it.
“His popularity draws a lot [of attention], but at the same time I wouldn’t be in this position if I couldn’t handle it,’’ Sanchez said yesterday. “I’m prepared for it. It’s a new experience, but I have plenty to draw on — ups and downs, highs and lows of seasons and understanding this thing is a marathon not a [sprint] and not to get caught up in who completed what ball and who didn’t.’’
Fortunately, for Sanchez, he didn’t have to come home last night, plop onto his couch and watch ESPN report on the picks he threw right into the arms of linebacker Bart Scott and safety Yeremiah Bell in 7-on-7 drills. Tebow did.
Sanchez didn’t have an answer to questions about interceptions — “Tim, what did you see on that Bart Scott pick?’’ — even though it was a mere blip-on-the-screen mistake in a practice four months before a real game will be played.
Tebow seems less affected by it all than Sanchez, probably because he has been dealing with the circus around him longer than Sanchez has. The fact is, despite Sanchez being the Jets’ starter entering his fourth season in New York, this is a new world he and the Jets live in and it’s Tebow’s world.
“I know it’s a different and a tough situation for him,’’ said tight end Dustin Keller, one of Sanchez’ closest friends on the team. “But I think he’s going to be better for it. There was already all the pressure in the world on him being a starting quarterback in New York and now it’s going to get that much worse.
“But I feel like when the pressure is on him most that’s when he performs his best, so I think it will bring out the best in him.’’
It better, or the 2012 Jets will be doomed.
mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com