Sanchez needed to sit. It had nothing to do with wins. He was deteriorating right before our eyes. Not benching him for a more than a few games did more harm than good.
Nobody is going to be willing to settle for a competent starter at this point. If Sanchez is not a top 16 guy right away he's going to get pushed aside as the team he's on goes looking for their franchise guy. There's no room to be a game manager at a mediocre level with your second team. You might get a year or even two out of it but they'll push you aside as soon as they can looking for a good QB.
Ok if Sanchez was not the best, then who was? I already mention Revis, but other than him, who? And Brees didnt play a much better game against the Colts in the Super Bowl, the big difference was: Brees's defense held Peyton to 17 AND had the pick 6 +Bree's FG kicker didnt miss 2 kicks. As far as the Pittsburgh game, again who played better other than Revis? Sanchez played pretty decent in that game.
Sanchez played well. The team was awful first half. For all his 1000:s of turnovers, the one with almost no time left in the 2 nd quarter was not his fault. One of the worst coaching decisions in recent memory. What was in 3/20 from the 15 with 10 seconds on the clock? Nothing good could have come out of that decision.
It was an ugly half. The drive where Sanchez fumbled was only his 4th drive of the game, and the defense had already given up 17 pts and allowed the Steelers to score on 3 out of 4 drives. I think the jets got aggressive because they thought the defense was toast. At that point we couldnt stop anything. That Kyle Wilson drop still eats at me, he would still be running if he caught it, it would have been 24-17 midway through the third.
I'm not going to rewatch the games just pick an individual player. But overall nobody stood out in the Pitt game. Sanchez didn't separate himself from the rest of them, he had his fair share of poor plays that held the offense back when we needed them to produce. So no, if the rest of the team played at Mark's level we probably wouldn't have won the game. Mark had his fair share miscues that didn't help us and had a terrible first half along with the rest of the offense that negatively impacted the point differential in the game at that point. And yes Drew Brees absolutely played better against the IND Colts than Sanchez did in the championship game. Brees completed over 80% of his passes. He had one incomplete pass in the 2nd half of that game! The Saints scored on their last 4 meaningful possessions to total 21 points from them. In those 4 final drives Brees only had two incomplete passes, and one of them was a spike to stop the clock! They averaged 3 points per possession that game overall. If you rewatch the SB, just crediting the D is severely underrating what the offense did. It also discredits Payton's coaching decision and how the offense played. You don't 80% if your WR are running the wrong routes or dropping passes for example. You know the phrase that gets tossed around, the best defense is a good offense? The NO defense played well but the NO offense helped them a great deal. They gave IND no easy possessions or points. They put pressure on IND by scoring so much and limit the amount of times IND could touch the ball.
Thats debatable. Brees played a better game but he didnt play that much better than what Sanchez played. The first half of that game was nothing memorable, the second half he took over but the defense did come up with a HUGE interception. After the Colts went up 10-0 the Saints defense only gave up 7 points the rest of the game and scored 7 of their own.
The thing with Sanchez, which hasn't changed yet is a) he's coming off an injury and we haven't seen him since then b) his contract is huge, it has to be ripped up and redone c) he's been inconsistent his whole career. d) he hasn't show good consistent football play since 2011 Those 4 major things are frustrating from a fan perspective. There really isn't much excitement around him for those reasons. It's been a while since we saw Sanchez playing good football. That makes a lot of people hesitant to see if the Jets should even try to give him another shot. It also doesn't help that there is a more "exciting" option in Vick who showed good football much more recently than Sanchez and has played with MM before. Then of course the new "unknown" in Geno and the potential new "unknown" in the draft. Leaves Sanchez in that awkward part of his career on the Jets where he isn't as good as contract, he really hasn't helped the Jets in a while, but he showed potential and still is young for a QB in the NFL. I still don't think this is the best place for him to revive his career. Somewhere like SF or something like that, a talented team as a backup so if he does play it will be with low expectations and great talent around him. Here, he's the past regime decision.
The Saints already had the lead before the INT. And yes Sanchez's 3 quarters were nothing memorable, so in my mind Brees played much better. And both watching the games and the numbers back it up. That's not to say Sanchez played bad in IND. He played good, just not as great as Brees did. Did the rest of the Saints team play great, of course. I just think, fairly easily and with no doubt in my mind, Brees SB play was better than Sanchez's AFC champ game play.
Not by much though, Brees was not really memorable in the Super Bowl imo. Just a bunch of small yardage passes the entire game.
Are we talking memorable or how they actually played? Memorable is way more up to each individual. As a Jets fan, the Jets will always be more memorable to me regardless of how other players played in separate games. If we are comparing how they played, Brees played better especially once you take into effect the ball controlling, clock eating the completed passes did to the game.
Sanchez completed a whole 3 of 11 passes before they finally had a drive where they scored. 7 of 17 by halftime (Not including an incomplete pass where a penalty was accepted). Had he made more passes and kept drives going, Pittsburgh never would have gained all that momentum in the first half and maybe we would have scored more than 19 points that game.
I did ask. In year 3 he also started to help the team too to the tune of 32 total TDs. I personally would not have benched him then. I haven't yet accused you of hating him. While I do think the organization did not provide the best environment to maximize his development, I do not think he was set up fail. Having a strong running and a dominant defense is not a set-up for failure. Note this is coming from an accused Sanchez "fanboi". Year 4 he was awful; I would have benched him if we had a viable option on the bench. That said, that team was trash with or w/o Sanchez.
Likewise I'm not accusing you of loving sanchez. I'm completely indifferent to him. While he was terrible at times, I do feel the organization dropped the ball in handling him.
The 2011 roster was not as talented as the prior 3 years' rosters, at that point his development was more important than wins or to prove whatever point you are trying to make. IMO the opportunites to bench him were in years prior where his inconsistent play and inexperience at times was hindering a "talented" veteran team. The Jets chose to "ride and die" with him in 2009 and 2010. Doing so the first year he has access to the entire playbook with a non-contending team would have been pointless. In 2012 he needed to be benched once it was evident his confidence was shot. Playing it out did more harm then good but Rex was in a tough spot as on the bench he had a guy that couldn't throw and one that won't throw. Sanchez was just one of the very many issues with that season.
Standard typical reply. Someday you'll actually say something regarding Sanchez...but I won't hold my breath. Reminder, your the one who's gone on several tirades about me to other posters...perhaps you should take your own advice.
The thing is I don't think the Jets expected him, or even wanted him, to be a 4,000 yard guy. They wanted to build a team around defense with a game manager QB who took care of the ball and was an efficient short passer. Unfortunately Mark never showed efficiency with passing, as evidenced with his career 55.1 completion percentage (with only 1 season actually over 55% (56.7%). Even that the team could live with if he could just take care of the ball because if you're not an offensive power house and you are defensive based team turnovers will kill you. Sanchez only once turned the ball over fewer than 23 times and that was the year the Defense and running game led the team to an 11-5 record, Sanchez that year committed only 14 turnovers and the Jets won. While it is an unofficial, and controversial stat, Sanchez that year had far more dropped interceptions than any other QB in the league. It's not an official or even generally accepted stat but I will guarantee you that scouts and coaches pay attention to it as a bad decision with a positive or neutral outcome. But that's kind of the thing about Sanchez, he's always been turnover prone. In his time with the Jets when under pressure he is at the bottom of performance when under pressure. You can survive being somewhat turnover prone if you're putting up big numbers to compensate for it, but you can't have those turnovers if you're not putting up big numbers. Maybe, and I say maybe, Sanchez can overcome his turnover problems with a team that runs a wide open offense where big numbers can offset a large number of turnovers, but his poor performance when under pressure would seem to counter indicate that and teams that run wide open offenses tend to have QB's that are frequently under pressure because defenses pin their ears back more. Sanchez did have good success in 2011 with longer to mid range passes, but part of that success has to be attributed to defenses often playing with 8 in the box to focus on the running game that the Jets prefer running (and yes part of that is coaching but in this case it played somewhat to sanchez's advantage.). Sanchez has the physical tools, but then again all NFL players have the physical tools or they wouldn't be there at all. The problem with Sanchez has been his decision making and execution, he doesn't read defenses very well and is often fooled by coverages. He's often indecisive in the pocket when there's any sort of pressure, actual or perceived. The butt fumble incident is a perfect example, but not for the butt fumble or running in to his own lineman. Rather it's a perfect example of what goes wrong for Sanchez's thought process before he even got to the line of scrimmage. The play broke down when either the RB went to the wrong side or Sanchez turned the wrong way (we'll never know which was actually the case, but these things happen from time to time and in and of itself is not to blame). The important part is what Sanchez did after the play broke down, he panicked. This panic led to a series of very poor decisions, the last of which was of course running in to the backside of his own O-Lineman. He was not under pressure at that time, with a cool head he could have just rolled outside of the pocket and thrown the ball away or maybe seen someone open to toss the ball to. Instead panicked, lost control of the situation and ran towards the LOS carrying the ball like a purse in one hand. Instead of running outside he ran directly in to the line, he didn't tuck the ball and he tried to slide (if indeed he did try to slide) way too late in the process and still with the ball unsecured. The buttfumble portion is only blooper reel material, the real importance of the issue was the series of decisions that Sanchez made after the play had blown up and showed that the game was clearly playing too fast for him. And that's the problem, the key to succeeding in the NFL isn't physical ability, if your were drafted or signed by a team you have that much. What makes you successful or unsuccessful on the field is the mental aspect of the game, this is especially true at QB. In a sense the Bull Durham thing plays out here, Sanchez on the field has a million dollar ability, but on the field he also has a ten cent head when it come to the ability to process information. Tom Brady doesn't have the tools that Sanchez does, or most other QB's have. But his ability to read defenses, recognize situations, make quick and accurate decisions is what sets him apart, same with Peyton Manning (especially at this juncture in his career where he clearly doesn't have the leagues best physical tools, in most regards physically he's nfl average at best). But their mental acuity on the field, their calmness under fire (yes they get angry and yell after the play, but while the play is going on they're cool and collected). But it's that aspect of play that separates the P. Mannings and Tom Brady's of the world from the more physically gifted Ryan Liefs of the world, and everyone in between. Maybe at some point Sanchez gets that mental aspect together and keeps it for more than a game or two here and there. Or maybe he winds up going down in the history books as just another guy who had a world of promise but could never put it together. Only time will tell that story.
Speaking of butt fumble, what were Mark's numbers that game? It seems like Mark played and lost the game by himself on offense and defense. The butt fumble was a blown play and Mark actually was trying to minimize the loss. So what were Mark's numbers against the patriots that year????
