The Jets have limped through a pair of preseason games on offense, with no touchdowns generated in eight quarters of football. But quarterback Mark Sanchez says it’s too early to get too nervous.
“It’s not time to hit the panic button,” Sanchez told the media after the 26-3 loss to the Giants, via comments transcribed and distributed by the team. “You have to improve and learn from this stuff. I know we can do it. I’ve seen this team play much better than this. I’ve seen it in practice. The encouraging thing is we have the right personnel. These guys will go watch the film. They’ll go study, understand why it happened, come out next week and play well.”
Sanchez said that coach Rex Ryan shared that same sentiment with the team: “Rex said it best after the game. He said, ‘Look, it’s the second preseason game. We have to score points, but there’s no reason to hit the panic button right now.’”
They’re both right. With a new offensive coordinator and several key receivers missing, it’s too early to worry. Still, the preference would be to play well.
“Of course, that’s the plan,” Sanchez said. “We’re now just out here playing around.”
Some Jets fans would beg to differ, at least based on what they’ve seen in the first two weeks of the games that don’t mean anything. And now that the Jets have eight days to get ready for the next game that doesn’t mean anything, it sounds like, to Sanchez, it means something.
“This is our last chance,” Sanchez said. “We need to play well.”
Though he’s talking about the preseason, the fact remains that, if the Jets don’t show anything in the games that don’t count, the fans will be more likely to revolt in the first one that does -- September 9, when the Bills come to town.
Ryan is, as usual, confident that things will be fine by then. “I’m 100 percent sure when we kick it off for real, we will have more production,” Ryan said. “There’s absolutely no doubt about that.”
That’s a fairly safe bet, given that to date there’s pretty much no way the Jets could have less production.