Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...ets-banking-6-article-1.1234112#ixzz2HDnkB100 NY Jets stuck with Mark Sanchez, and Rex Ryan should be accountable for quarterback's collapse Less than two years ago, Sanchez went into Foxborough and beat a 14-2 New England Patriots team and put the Jets into a second straight AFC title game The story with the Jets isn’t as much the No. 6 jersey that Rex’s wife is wearing in the tattoo on his upper right arm, as much fun as we have all had with that since Daily News photographer Andrew Theodorakis, known to us as Theo, snapped the picture at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas the other day. The story with the Jets is the guy who actually wears No. 6 for the Jets, and that is Mark Sanchez. The Jets will probably announce a new general manager this week, and because they are the Jets, maybe a new head coach as well, even with that vote of confidence the owner gave to Rex when he fired Mike Tannenbaum six days ago. You think Rex still couldn’t go? Look how long Scott Pioli lasted as general manager of the Chiefs once Andy Reid was hired as their new coach. Romeo Crennel got fired in Kansas City, and Pioli was supposed to be staying on, until he wasn’t. You think Woody can’t change his mind on Rex? Remember something about owners, even if you have to tattoo this one behind your eyeballs: Nothing, and I mean nothing, is ever their fault. Woody might have awakened on Friday morning and looked at the front page of The News — the shot seen ‘round the world — and decided that his coach was officially making him look bad, as he looked at that No. 6. But for now, and unless you have a better idea about who quarterbacks the Jets next season with the money that Sanchez is making, the whole ballgame continues to be the real No. 6, a young quarterback who less than two years ago went into Foxborough and beat a 14-2 New England Patriots team and put the Jets into a second straight AFC championship game. If you are one who says that Ryan should have been fired and still should be fired, it is hard for me or anybody else to out-debate you, especially with Woody Johnson about to hire a new general manager, one who will apparently be part of an arranged marriage with Rex. Because if there is one thing for which Rex should be accountable it is the almost Biblical collapse of Sanchez over the last couple of years, especially under offensive coordinator Tony Sparano, who not only couldn’t make Sanchez better or find a way to successfully back him up with Tim Tebow, he might have been the single worst play-caller in the NFL this season. With or without playmakers. Still: Think about where Sanchez was in January of 2011, which means on his way to his second straight AFC Championship Game, in his second year in the league, a kid who had started, really, just a handful of games at USC. Think about that and look at where we are in the NFL today, a historic day, two rookie quarterbacks — Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III — going up against each other in Washington, and Andrew Luck starting for the Colts in Baltimore. Nothing like this has ever happened in the league, especially the game in Washington, two rookies going up against each other in the playoffs with a combined total of 46 touchdown passes and just 15 interceptions. Maybe one of them will go to the NFC Championship Game, or all the way to the Super Bowl game. Or neither one of them will do what Sanchez did as a rookie, and win two playoff games on the road before losing to Peyton Manning in Indianapolis. That is what Sanchez did. Three years later, he looks like as bad a starting quarterback as there is in the league, as bad as they had in Arizona or Kansas City or anyplace. In a league where there are only two kinds of quarterbacks, and just two: The elite guys, and you know who they are. And the guys who give you a chance. The Jets moved up in the draft to take Sanchez because they — and I mean Woody, Tannenbaum, Rex — thought he could be an elite guy. Only in his fourth year, they had no chance with him. So is he nothing more than a career backup now, and an expensive one at that? Or can the Jets bring in somebody such as Norv Turner, or at least somebody who knows something about passing in the NFL, and rehabilitate Sanchez, still just 26 years old? Sanchez is the one throwing the ball around and coughing it up and having fender benders with offensive linemen. Sanchez is the one who now looks as if he panics under pressure and makes the worst decisions around. All that. I don’t have to tell you. You saw the same season I did, and the same guy. But the Jets are stuck with him, unless they want to cut him loose and take a huge salary-cap hit. Maybe they are stuck with him the way Woody thinks he’s stuck with Rex, who is on the books for at least six million dollars more. And yet: When you watch the rookies today, even rookies who have shown more game than Sanchez did even in the best of times, ask yourself if one of them is a lock to make it to the Final Four this year. Sanchez did it twice. No. 6 of the Jets. He’s the front page of this story, in more ways than one.
1. Mike Lupica is a sanctimonious asshole, biased and ultra-radical. 2. Daily News has no credibility in general and re football in particular.
Who ever thought Sanchez was a lock to make it to the final four? Any of the rookies playing in the playoffs are superior to Sanchez. In fact, the Seahawks are the much improved version of the early Ryan teams: strong defense, ground n pound, but strong QB play rather than just a game manager like Sanchez once was.
He's right in the sense we're stuck with Sanchez, and there's a good chance we'll be sold a bill of goods on how a new offensive coordinator/regime/talent influx will turn Sanchez around. Now, if Sanchez is competing with McElroy for the job, that's a problem. If it's Sanchez, McElroy and a free agent or another draft pick, and Sanchez is looking good, I'd be willing to give it a shot. The problem is that if Sanchez starts next year, the fans will probably turn on him in an instant. Sanchez would have to be confident and relaxed, he shouldn't be walking on eggshells. But if he starts in a Jets uniform again, hard to imagine anything but that.
agreed. Fuck Lupica. Unless he's quoting people from interviews, there's no need to take anything from this guy seriously.
What exactly is it that he gets? That the Jets ruined Sanchez? Check, we knew that. That he made the championship game twice? Check, we knew that. That Rex escaped blame for something (many things) that he had a hand in? Check, most of us knew that too. This article is pure oninion and nothing else, just like everything we all say on here ever day. We've been arguing this stuff for the better part of two years (or even longer for all I know, I've only been here a year). This contributes exactly nothing new to the debate.
Rex Ryan was supposed to be able to make Sanchez read defenses better? Throw more accurate? Throw the ball away when under pressure? "Feel" pressure around him?
Yea, thanks for nothing Lupica. Typical NYDN horseshit. Typical Lupica drivel. I don't think Rex is responsible for slowly letting the cast around the team's young inexperienced QB slowly whither away while making no sort of effort to stabilize it. He left that part out.
Mike Lupica may be the most intelligent amd talented sports writer, and just writer in general, in the country. And he is absolutely spot on - sanchez's demise gets laid at the feet of one individual, and that is Rex Ryan. Despite Ryan's best efforts to lay the blame everywhere else.
You must not be in the journalism field at all of you think Mike Lupica is the best sports writer in the country. Seriously.
The article makes no sense to me. It says Ryan is the problem and should be fired and then ends the article saying Sanchez is the front page of the story. It's the playoffs. Write about football. Write about how the SB Champs are sitting at home watching TV after advancing as far as the Jets this season. Write about how elite Eli shit the bed with the season on the line. The Jets season is over and there are dozens of reasons why. It is NOT all about the QB or the coach. The season ended one week ago. Let's see what the Jets do about now. Write about Gamble and what he is about. What are the options at QB? What are the possibilities in free agency? There is no reason to write about the team as if it is a soap opera. Stop being the National Inquirer of the sports world. I sat next to Lupica on an airplane years back and he is a sanctimonious pompous jerk. He loves a NY sports until he hates them. Read his columns for the past 30 years.
Bill Simmons, Jason Whitlock, Jonah Keri and Joe Posnanski (though admittedly Paterno was awful) all say hello.
All it's going to take is one bad decision by Sanchez, or a blind-side sack where he loses the ball, or even a few 3-and-outs however they happen and Sanchez is going to be toast with the crowd again. It's nice to think that you can always make the percentage play and not give up on a 26 year old QB coming off his worst season but crowd dynamics are anything but nice.
Out of all the scumbags that work for the NYDN, Liberal jackass Lupica is the worst of all. Go back to Boston, Masshole
Not sure that is entirely fair. Russell Wilson is a game manager; he is just better at it than Sanchez. This guy won a game 58-0 in which he completed 7 passes. He's a caretaker and if they get behind he is not leading them back. He is headier than Sanchez, though, and does a much better job protecting the football. That ultimately will be the undoing of Seattle. Really sick of the Russell Wilson worship. His team is LOADED much like the 2009 and 2010 jets.
Is there a reporter/writer that Jets fan like? Everybody is an idiot to this fanbase. Name them from Mehta, to Cimini to Francessa, to Lupica etc. It's funny to me. To me none of these media people and their opinion bothers me that much.
