When it comes to quarterback Mark Sanchez, the Jets can’t seem to get anything right. Which means that they get pretty much everything wrong.
It started last year when they flirted with Peyton Manning, who had no interest in having his jersey number tattooed anywhere on coach Rex Ryan’s body. Then, after Manning stiff-armed the Jets, the organization opted to give Mark Sanchez a McNabb-style financial apology, guaranteeing Sanchez $20.5 million with a deal that tied the two parties together for at least two seasons.
Then the Jets promptly traded for Tim Tebow, who had been supplanted by the aforementioned Peyton Manning in Denver.
Sanchez didn’t like it, the Tebow experiment didn’t work, Sanchez didn’t play well, and the Jets were stuck with him for 2013, at total compensation of $8.75 million with a fully-guaranteed, no-offset base salary of $8.25 million.
So the Jets used a high second-round pick on quarterback Geno Smith, launched a quarterback competition that may or may not have been rigged to give Smith the confidence that comes from winning the job, and inserted Sanchez in the fourth quarter of the third preseason game. Sanchez’s shoulder got jacked up (technical term), he may or may not need surgery, and the Jets have now placed him on injured reserve.
But not normal injured reserve. The Jets have used their once-per-year ability to shift a player from the roster to injured reserve and recall him later on a backup quarterback.
It means that the designation won’t be available if any other player suffers an injury that knocks him out for at least two months but not the full season, forcing the Jets to carry that player on the active roster.
The move also suggests that the Jets want to have Sanchez available later in the year, if the Geno Smith experiment mimics Peter Brady’s volcano -- as it did in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s game against the Patriots.
Regardless, it still seems inevitable that the Jets will cut Sanchez after the 2013 season. The only question is how many more weird things the Jets will do when it comes to Sanchez before the two sides finally part ways.