The quarterback was 25 years old, and he had tasted an awful lot of early success in his career. The prior two years his team had won 23 games and lost just nine, and you could sense momentum taking over — both team and quarterback seemed to possess an almost limitless supply of pixie dust.
But something happened that season to the 25-year-old quarterback. Defenses caught up to him. His supporting cast wasn’t as good as it needed to be. He threw 26 touchdown passes and 23 interceptions. And a week after the end of a dreadful playoff-free season, the following quote — unattributed, of course — appeared in the local newspaper:
“If we’re ever going to be good again, he’ll have to be better than this.”
The quarterback in question? A fellow named Peyton Manning.
OK, let’s take a break here: Before you jam the old email inbox, this is not to say Mark Sanchez is anywhere near the quarterback Manning was at 25, or would have been this year at 35 if not for the small fact that his neck X-rays look like a Jackson Pollock. Manning is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Sanchez still is very much a work-in-progress.
But that doesn’t change the eerie similarities between where Manning was at age 25 and where Sanchez is at 25 — the fact Manning’s 23-9 became 6-10 in ’01 (as Sanchez’s 19-12 became 8-8 this year), the fact Manning’s 26-23 touchdown-to-interception breakdown is awfully close to Sanchez’s 26-18 ratio, the fact that some nameless malcontent was throwing darts in the Indianapolis Star back in January of ’02.
It doesn’t change this truth: Even the greatest quarterbacks have hiccups. Not every quarterback is the child star Tom Brady was (after a year to do nothing but watch and learn) or Aaron Rodgers (who had three). There is this sense now that Manning appeared one day in the NFL as a fully-formed, fully-finished prodigy, free from the shackles of growing pains.
Not true.
Is Sanchez assured a spot among the elite at his position in the years to come? Not by a long shot. There were some valid points raised by the army of the anonymous: Anyone who watched “Hard Knocks” last year can tell Sanchez’s work habits aren’t exactly Type A, that he slouches and pouts when criticized. The Jets have done him no favors by shielding him from one-on-ones with reporters and limiting his access, even after 50 games as a pro.
You better believe he could use a backup who will push him more than Kellen Clemens and Mark Brunell ever have, one who easily could trot out to start a second half next year if Sanchez had botched a first half. That has to be a team priority, and quick. And even with that, there are no guarantees when it comes to Sanchez.
But to think he is the first 25-year-old quarterback to regress isn’t just laughable, it’s wrong. Steve Young at 25: eight TDs, 13 INTs. Bart Starr: three TDs, 12 INTs. Jim Plunkett: eight TDs, 25 INTs.
Joe Namath at 25: 15 TDs, 17 picks — though there was the small matter of the Super Bowl III win.
Sanchez may yet have more Richard Todd in him than Namath. We’ll see. And the Jets — even his off-the-record wingmen — better hope it’s more Namath.
As Peyton’s personal ombudsman put it back in the day: If they’re ever going to be good again, he’ll have to be better than this.