I think the truth of that matter is that while Sanchez did play better, he did not take progress at the rate people expected/wanted. Fair or unfair, the 3rd year is usually seen as the year that QBs take a big leap forward. While Sanchez improved overall, he continued to make some of the mistakes he made in 2010. In fact, I think it can be argued that the greatest point of contention is that Sanchez hasn't addressed his career flaws sufficiently up until this point. He was better in 2011 than in 2010, but wasn't better enough. I also think the media places entirely too much importance on turnovers (God knows Eli has been skewered for them) and any turnover that is the result of an obviously stupid decision/while the QB appears afraid, intimidated, or harrowed seems to be blood in the water for media critics. Eli was killed for turnovers (which was fair, to an extent), but was also criticized for not being Peyton, Ben Roethlisberger playing well, his defense giving up leads, and his facial expressions. Sanchez is in a similar boat in that he is also criticized for things beyond his control and things that are baseless and silly. The one big difference I see is that Eli never wavered under that criticism. He never appeared flustered by the media at any point that I can recall. I don't know if that is necessarily the case with Mark. Having said that, Eli is NOT an emotionally demonstrative person and he's not going to reveal what he's thinking as much as Sanchez due to his nature. Still, I think Sanchez is going to need to thicken his skin to make it through this season. He could have a career year and there will still be people crediting the defense for the Jets' wins and calling for Tebow to start week-in and week-out.
It depends on how you took his emotions or lack of them. I do think he avoided the media well, but he had the same problem as Sanchez and many young QB's where he got too flustered by the bad in a game. Now he has become much better at shrugging it off. But from what I remember in the past, his beginning, he let the problems snowball and the lack of emotion didn't help because media thinks lack of emotion = not caring when that is not true at all. You obviously would remember better, but I do think he let negative things snowball. A discussion for a different day, but I think being thrown into the fire helps a young QB more than starting immediately.
What follows is a long analysis, but it comes from years of reading, watching, and learning. I tried to "figure out" Eli early on his career and read everything about QB coaching, development, and mechanics. I'll try to objectively assess Eli & Mark. From what Coughlin said, the early issues with Eli were that he went through his progressions too mechanically and not getting to his checkdowns and hotreads quickly enough. Eli was feeling the rush from a pocket presence standpoint (he's always been good at getting the ball out and not taking too many sacks), but he was forcing throws by trying hit to guys that had not yet declared their routes or beaten the coverages they were facing. This was why he had a low completion percentage and so many INTs. I think that's kind of the opposite issue of what Sanchez. Sanchez seems to be rushing through his reads and going to his checkdowns too quickly. I think that flaw combined with Schotty's poor playcalling and made for a QB that was too easy to defend. I think Sanchez's low completion percentage came from him only making a few reads on a given play and from being predictable. I think the low YPC comes from giving up on his deep & intermediate reads too quickly. Another issue Eli faced early on was getting sloppy with his mechanics, in particular his footwork. This lead to passes hanging up in the air too long. It also impacted his accuracy and lead to INTs and prevented him from hitting open WRs in stride. Eli did a lot of footwork and accuracy drills (he credits Chris Palmer for this) and that's done wonders for him. Sanchez, from what I see, has much better footwork at this point in his career. I think the issue with Sanchez comes from him over-estimating his arm strength. I know this is is contrary to popular opinion, but hear me out. I think Sanchez has average to above-average arm strength for the position. I think the issue is that he has a tendency to overestimate this when attempting intermediate passes. I've seen him go to that range without setting his feet and have passes take too long to reach their target. I also think he throws in to coverage that is too tight at this range because he believes he can fit it in there. This is a coachable flaw and one that Schotty/Rex/the QB coach should have fixed. I think that he's VERY good at going deep because his anticipation and discretion at that range are different than his intermediate range. I also think he doesn't try to go deep without setting his feet. In doing this he maximizes his arm strength, takes advantage of his great footwork and smooth mechanics, and also makes better decisions. I think Schotty's greatest sin is not taking advantage of this strength of Sanchez game. Most young QBs go deep with mixed bags of results due to questionable decision making and poor mechanics (sometimes they just kind of heave it). Sanchez is free from these flaws and has shown his strength in these areas. Look at his 4th quarter comebacks in 2010 to see examples of this; Mark was letting it fly because Schotty had no choice but to go deep and he delivered in SPADES. In terms of letting the bad parts of a game impact him, I don't think Eli ever carried the negative play with him the way Mark does. Eli's problem was being skittish in the pocket (which didn't mix well with his lack of ability to check down ASAP when called for) and not being an inspiring leader. Eli's quietness was a problem when they lost but a strength when the Giants won. Eli is stronger in the pocket now than he ever was and the quiet leadership isn't an issue now that the Giants are winning. My concern with Mark is how he's shown himself to be a little too aware of what the media is thinking and talking about. I think you could see this on Hard Knocks and I think it's been on display in some of his press conferences. He gives a great interview and he was really popular with fans (at least initially) because he was aware of what the fans and writers wanted to hear. That was great to endear himself to the city and burst on the scene, but now he's got to man up and shut them down now. Damn that was long (that's what she said).
