The Jets plan to use two quarterbacks interchangeably in 2012, which then will make it harder for the opposing defense to prepare for either of them. For that approach to succeed, one person must fully and completely buy in.
And his name isn’t Tim Tebow.
The “starting” quarterback, Mark Sanchez, must be prepared to never complain, via words or body language, about getting yanked from a game and replaced by Tim Tebow. Specifically, Sanchez can’t say anything negative about the process of Sanchez out/Tebow in, in any setting -- at his locker, during a press conference, or while sipping a post-game beer with Mike Silver.
Sanchez also can’t do anything during a game that would suggest displeasure with having his rhythm disrupted. Remember Donovan McNabb during a 2009 preseason game? He didn’t like being removed for a couple of Mike Vick Wildcat plays, and McNabb made it known.
Mark needs to control his body language and his facial expression and if all else fails he needs to remember he’s getting more than $20 million for the next two years to go along with periodically stepping aside.
He can prevent it only by stepping up in a major way -- by becoming so good that the team can’t justify taking him off the field for one snap per game much less 20. Unless and until that happens, nothing Sanchez says can make the situation better. Given that it’s all playing out in New York, any effort by Sanchez to communicate displeasure will only make it worse.
And, yes, this blurb was intended to be a vehicle to present a clip from Tuesday’s PFT Live.