A year after Giants quarterback Eli Manning said he’s an elite quarterback and then went out and proved it in a big way, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez says he can be a top-1o quarterback.
“Oh sure,” Sanchez said, via Seth Walder of the New York Daily News.
Though we didn’t see his demeanor when he said it, the words “oh sure” seem more perfunctory than aspirational. It’s the short version of, “What the hell else am I supposed to say?” (Which, to be clear, Sanchez didn’t say . . . and now only 13.2 percent of you will think he said it.)
“You gotta think that,” Sanchez said. “You gotta play like that. As soon as you step on the field, you gotta be the baddest guy out there. The toughest, the best, the most accurate. And you gotta win.”
He’s right. Confidence is critical to any starting quarterback.
Which is why it’s important for a team to put complete trust in the starting quarterback. By, you know, getting him a backup and not a potential replacement in backup’s clothing (shirt optional). By not periodically pulling the starting quarterback off the field with a gimmick offense that hopefully will force opposing teams to spend less time preparing to stop the starting quarterback, in an artificial attempt to help the starter play better. By not talking openly about how the team would have drafted a young gun like Colin Kaepernick last year if it could have.
In this complex psychological dance playing out in New York, the Jets are trying to awaken the badass in Sanchez by slapping him in the face, repeatedly. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won’t. But the journey will be anything but boring.