November 1, 2010 By GREG BISHOP The last time the Jets played an entire game without changing the zero on the scoreboard, Eric Mangini was in his first season as their coach, Mark Sanchez was a college backup at Southern California, and their offense lacked the constellation of stars the franchise has since assembled. It last happened in 2006, a shutout at home against Chicago that November. Since then, the Jets have played 64 games. Since then, they have selected a quarterback (Sanchez) and a tight end (Dustin Keller) in the first rounds of separate drafts. They also traded for or signed former first-round selections at running back (LaDainian Tomlinson), wide receiver (Braylon Edwards, Santonio Holmes) and right tackle (Damien Woody). Last off-season, they gave contract extensions to two other first-round picks, D’Brickashaw Ferguson (left tackle) and Nick Mangold (center). That makes eight former first-round picks in the same starting lineup — which produced zero points against Green Bay on Sunday. Worse, though, was the postgame reaction from the visitors’ locker room, where Packers safety Nick Collins provided the afternoon’s most honest assessment. Collins laid out the Packers’ defensive plan: slow the Jets’ running attack and force Sanchez to beat them through the air. They did. He could not. “I don’t think they trust him, the coaching staff,” Collins said after Green Bay’s 9-0 victory. “They only have a select few plays they let him run. I don’t know what the deal is, but observing a quarterback like that on a great team with all those big names — you expect them to be going down the field.” In that statement, Collins touched on a fear spreading through the fan base, because clearly this Jets roster is built to win now, with all the money the franchise lavished on free agents and all the short-term contracts that expire next off-season. When Sanchez plays well, the offense moves efficiently, and this Jets team has at times looked like a balanced, dangerous, legitimate Super Bowl contender. When Sanchez does not play well, as evidenced by his four interceptions in the past two games, the Jets resemble a stool with a crooked leg, off balance, unpredictable, inconsistent. “The object of the game is to put points on the board, by any means, and we went out and had zero points,” Holmes said Monday. “It’s unacceptable.” On Sunday, the Jets struggled to spread the ball around. Afterward, it was far easier to spread the blame. The Jets did not run the ball effectively or enough. Sanchez misfired often in the first half, and his mistakes were compounded by a receiving corps that suffered from the drops. Both of Sanchez’s interceptions were ripped from the hands of his intended receivers. Holmes muffed what looked like a sure touchdown pass. Another wideout, Jerricho Cotchery, was targeted 13 times — and caught and dropped four passes apiece. “It takes broad shoulders to play quarterback here, in this town,” Coach Rex Ryan said Monday. After the Packers debacle, the width of Sanchez’s shoulders seemed like a legitimate concern. For all his struggles in his rookie season, he most needed to correct his propensity to sulk after losses, overanalyzing his mistakes. Teammates again insisted Sunday that he had changed and that they did not expect him to regress. “He’s so different from last year,” Woody said. “I don’t expect that.” At least they hope. The Jets’ offense, with its impressive collection of talent, was 15th over all on Monday. And according to at least one Packer, Sanchez does not yet have his coaches’ trust. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/sports/football/02jets.html?_r=1&ref=football&pagewanted=print
Imo that article was careful not to take a pro or con position on Sanchez. And that imo is kind of the problem. As a writer Bishop wants there to be a tension between as he put it those games when Sanchez seems in control, and the team wins, and those when he does not, and they do not. But I think it more likely that while there will be ups and downs from game to game, what we will mostly see overall from Sanchez is what we should expect from a second year quarterback, and that is play that is more in the middle, at least on average. As he said, offense that's 15th overall.
He certainly doesn't have my trust. I hope he can turn it around, but there is something about him that frightens me. Football like anything else is about confidence, and I don't know if he believes in himself enough to just shake things off.
Sanchez wasn't the problem in Sunday's loss....his receivers/running backs let him down. Greg Bishop should relax with a schmoke and a pancake.
It's amazing how Sanchez can look so great at times and so lost at others. I'm certainly not putting the blame on him for the Packers loss but he hasn't showed consistency and until he does I think the offense will be a roller coaster ride.
This article is lacking perspective. People always seem to forget he's in his SECOND year. He is going to have bad games, there's no two ways around it. The receivers certainly didn't help him this week either. And as for the Jets only running a certain number of passing plays, who cares? If they execute there are two sure TD's on the field and a number of other completions. So good for you Green Bay, you knew our pass plays but still left all these wide open routes out there to be had - the Jets just missed. Prior to this week the Jets offense was third in the league in scoring. They have an off week and people want to use flamboyant article titles like "Jets still can't score". This guy can lick my nuts.
Didn't Sanchez have 8 TDs and 0 INTs before Week 7? Didn't we read plenty of articles talking about how the new Jets offense is pretty explosive, and have no problem scoring? Our Green Bay gameplan and execution was the issue. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the team.
QFT. Only with the Jets can they lose to an out of conference opponent and everyone reacts like they just lost the Super Bowl via Mark Gastineau.
Gunther = Mark Cantchez Sanchez has throw 2 INTs this year. Those two fucking picks against GB were catches if #6's Jersey said Brady or Manning. They were bullshit. Brad Smith was a legitimate turnover. Keller and Cotch were fucking DOWN!
The last 2 something days have proven to me one thing: you're not allowed to have a bad game anymore.
LOL, exactly- We must go 16-0 every regular season, if not it's a failure. Games like this could be game changers for our season, which I think it will. In 5 weeks after we've won another 5 in a row I wonder how many of these stupid ass threads will get bumped.
This is why I just ventured back into the main forum two days later...All I had to do was see some of the thread titles and I knew I didn't want to get involved. One bad game...things will be fixed. We'll be 8-2 in 3 weeks. We're not in a bad spot one bit today.:up:
If I was Mark Sanchez, I'd be fuming that this loss is being put on my shoulders. Two of his clutch receivers gave away the football. Holmes and Cotchery dropped huge, game-changing balls. He led a solid drive before the Brad Smith fumble, which must have drove him up the wall since he hates Brad's packages. I only saw one bad mistake from Sanchez, and that was missing Edwards on a wide open post. But it still threw a first down on that play. If Mark Sanchez plays the rest of the year the way he did Sunday, we'll all be very pleased.
It's almost like people didn't expect him to have bad games. It's his second year in the league and people are going on and on about his lack of consistency when it was to be expected. Every time he has a good game I praise him and say he will have another rough game soon enough. The key right now is that we know he can play at a very high level and it's only a matter of time before the consistency comes.
He put it on his own shoulders. I hope that he is getting in his receivers' faces behind closed doors a little bit.
I agree 100%, I'm happy that you see it this way too. I was beginning to feel quite lonely on here. lol
