Last year, former Jets quarterback Joe Namath made a habit out of bashing his former team, to the point where Namath expressed regret about his comments in late January. (Of course, that didn’t stop Namath in March from expressing a belief that the Jets are too dysfunctional to attract Peyton Manning to town.)
But Namath is now rallying behind the quarterback whom Namath chided for making a “bonehead decision” during a 2011 game against the Raiders. According to Jenny Vrentas of the Newark Star-Ledger, Namath described Sanchez as “sensational” at a Tuesday night’s United Way Gridiron Gala, adding that the starter is “much better” than Tim Tebow.
“There’s no doubt about it, there’s no doubt about it at all,” Namath said. “At this point, certainly. And Mark’s going to get better. He’s going into his fourth year. Golly, I remember a team that won a championship with a quarterback in his fourth year. I hope it happens again.”
Of course, when that happened, there was a guy on TV regularly saying, “Golly.”
Namath’s praise for Sanchez arguably is rooted criticism of the team for bringing in Tebow. And Namath realizes that things between him and the team are still a little strained, at best.
"[N]one of us like to be critiqued or criticized in a negative way,” Namath said. “It gets bent sometimes. I don’t like feeling the vibes that I get back whenever I cross [owner] Woody [Johnson’s] path. [Coach] Rex [Ryan] and I have been getting along well when we bump into each other, but I know there’s an underlying sensitivity there that the Jets have.”
They’re probably even more sensitive when it comes to Namath, because they believe that Namath should show more loyalty to his former team.