I love posting this statistic, so thank you for giving me another chance. Mark Sanchez has won more games in his first 3 seasons (postseason included) than any QB in history except for 1. The list goes Dan Marino - 33, Mark Sanchez / Matt Ryan 32, Joe Flacco 31. So yeah, Sanchez is a winner, only one guy has done it better through his first 3 seasons, EVER.
There have been reports that his neck has recovered sufficiently that he is no longer in danger of any increased risk of further injury. The unresolved question right now is has his arm strength recovered enough or will it. If you believe the hype he is on his way. Teams will have to do their due diligence and rely heavily on their own doctors and scouts opinions. I would imahine right now there a lot of scouts hanging around Duke's practice field. Will Manning settle for a performance contract or does he want guaranteed money? He may have to choose between guaranteed money vs. a better built team. I doubt Tannenbaum will be to enthusiastic about about taking on large guarantees. He still recalls how he got burned on the Revis deal and how hard he fought against giving in. On the other hand I would bet Woody and Rex will be applying a lot of pressure on Tanny to land Manning. If his health checks out I would rather invest $15 million into Manning this year than $10 million into Sanchez. I think in the long run that is a much better use of money. Signing a healthy Manning is like signing 6 blue chip players. Instantly almost every player on the Jets becomes better. The OL becomes better with Mannings pre-snap reads and quick release. The Wrs become better, and the RBs suddenly find big holes. Keller becomes a beast. The defense becomes a lot better as suddenly we are playing with leads forcing teams to throw against our defense. I cannot imagine a better cap investment than a healthy Manning as he makes so many players better. From a cap perspective they can afford Manning quite easily by spreading the money out until the cap increases in a few years with the new TV contract. The question to me is the risk. How much guaranteed over how long. I hate the idea of trading up for the number 2 pick. The cost is to huge and the risk is great. Will we end up with another Sanhez or Nagle who we will have to discard in a few years. The track record of high drafted Qbs is not good. A healthy Manning sounds like a much better investment. If the risk can be minimized on a performance contract and he checks out healthy I like investing money in Manning much better than investing money in Sanchez or in trading picks for RG III. My guess is Manning will be in the league a few years longer than Sanchez. Manning needs 4 good years to set most of the all-time QB records. That is about 2 years longer than I expect Sanchez to remain in the league.
Just for S&G's....aside from the quarterback position, do you think the Jets will likely have a better roster for the coming season? Or do you think they will be able to add more depth and get stronger in years 2 and 3?
IMO the Jets are arguably the most talented team in the league. We have some holes. A pass rusher, an athletic safety, a RT, a blocking TE and a QB. That is not many holes but this is a QB driven league and without a QB its very hard to win. Without a QB we are forced to play the style of football we play. Which results in close games every week. Which means games are often decided by 3-4 plays. There is quite a bit of luck involved. In 2009 and 2010 we were a couple of plays from not being a playoff team. In 2011 we were a couple of plays from being a playoff team. I really dislike what the NFL has become where there is far to much emphasis on a QB. Until we get a legitimate QB we will be riding the fortunes of luck every year. But at least the rest of the team is good enough to make us a contender regardless of who our QB is. In regards to getting better this year. I think there is a great opportunity. At 16 the likelihood of a very good player being there is pretty high. Richdarson, DeCastro, Ingram and Keuchly look like impact players. If we do not reach for a need like Barron we could get an exceptional player at 16. I would expect we will add an athletic safety. The draft is deep at WR we will pick up a good WR. We should add a pass rusher and OL depth along with a blocking TE. I am guessing our depth and our starters will be better. Hopefully we will get lucky on a few picks this year. My concern besides QB for the long run is Revis. He makes our defense very good almost by himself. He takes away an offenses best reciever and allows us to use all the crazy schemes we use. His contract runs out after the 2013 season. He cannot be franchised or restricted. He may be very hard to resign. Does he want a huge payday that only Daniel Snyder can give him or does he want to stay here and win. I can only imagine how good our defense could be with a pass rushing threat, Revis and/or with a legitimate QB. I just don't want to imagine our defense without Revis. I suffered through the 70's and the 90's as a Jets fan. I love what we have done since 97. I don't want to go back.
Noam, you're nuts. The Jets have Darrelle Revis and Nick Mangold and nobody else on the roster who cracks the top 5 at their position. Other than D'Brick and Harris they have no other players that you could arguably put in the top 10 at their position. This roster is less talented than it has been at anytime since 2007. It is nowhere near as talented as the rosters the Jets had from 2001 to 2004 that lived or died based on whether Chad was hurt or healthy,
You're absolutely right, BUT I think you would be hard pressed to find any team in the NFL that has that type of talent at multiple positions.
The Ravens: Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata, Ray Rice and Michael Oher. Behind them they have aging talent that swamps the Jets like Ed Reed and Ray Lewis. They have better players in general behind the star power. The Steelers: Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Wallace, Markice Pouncey, Troy Polamalu, LaMarr Woodley. They have James Harrison and Lawrence Timmons, one going and the other coming. The Steelers talent level dwarfs the Jets at this point. The Patriots: Tom Brady, Vince Wilfork, Logan Mankins, Matt Light, Rob Gronkowski, Jerod Mayo, Wes Welker, etc. This one isn't even close. The Texans: Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, Arian Foster, Johnathan Joseph, Brian Cushing, DeMeco Ryans and not even including Mario Williams who probably will not be franchised. There are a lot of teams just in the AFC with high top end talent and many of them have better depth and more talent behind that than the Jets. And as Jet fans we grant special status for people like David Harris who is an excellent player but he's also in his prime now at 27 and has never been to a Pro Bowl. I make the Jets talent out right now at about average for the AFC and well below the talent that the elite teams have. As an example I'm not even sure the Jets talent is better than teams like the Bengals, Broncos and Dolphins. I'm not sure it is much better than the Jaguars and the Raiders. It probably is not as good as the Chargers either.
The Jets have 7 pro bowl caliber players in Ferguson, Mangold, Moore, Harris, Revis, Cromartie and Pouha. Holmes and Keller could be very good if we had a QB. Wilson is an excellent 3rd cb.Wilkerson could become an excellent player. We have lost ground with Pace, Thomas and Leonhard. Scott's position has been somewhat phased out as we have been using a lot of extra db packages. But we have very strong nucleus and not many weakspots outside of QB, safety, a pass rusher and RT. Our nucleus is just as strong as the Steelers, Ravens, Chargers, Texans, Pats or any team in the NFL. What we are lacking is a QB. With a QB many of our players simply become better and many of our weak spots become less exposed. In todays NFL one cannot simply have a team full of 22 all stars.
The point that I was trying to scratch up is precisely this. They nucleus of the team is there. We're just waiting to fill out the depth issue over a couple of years and get improved QB play. What you don't appreciate is that the improved QB play will come from our roster. You'd rather put it all on the line on the shoulders of a guy who has one or two years left if the creek don't rise and we're right back to square one of the never ending saga for the Jets to find a quarterback. I hate to throw logic at the problem but here goes. Sanchez's rookie int% was 5.5%: http://skepticalsports.com/?tag=cool-graphs
Sanchez only has 31 wins - 10 in 2009 (Clemens started in Tampa Bay); 13 in 2010 (You have to give him week 17, but jeez.) and 8 in 2011.
This post is such a joke. The Jets may have a number of high level players ('pro bowl players' is such an irrelevant term nowadays that I don't know where to begin) but they spent drafts picks with such frivolity to get those players that now they have some of the worst depth in the league at many positions. And that is not even mentioning the glaring holes on the active roster. Manning can't make us better at safety, ILB, or OLB. It's not a 22 man roster, it's a 53 man roster. Also, I find it curious that you have the exact same flaws in logic that milcus does.
Forgive me, he has 31 wins, tied for 3rd most all-time in his first three years as a starter. Doesn't change the point, the guy is a winner.
As a frame of reference for people Kyle Boller won 18 games his first 3 seasons with a top 6 defense over that span and Jamal Lewis behind him.
A bad QB cannot win the number of games Sanchez has won over the last three seasons. It's just not possible. The NFL is too tough a competition for that. If Sanchez was actually as bad as people say he is the Jets would have won about 18 games and none in the post-season over the last three years.
Boller didn't have the great Brian Schottenheimer to work with though, so that has to count for at least 4 wins per season.
