No Need to Rush Sanchez

By PeteWritesFootball  |   Thursday, August 13, 2009  |  Comments( 2 )

New York Jets
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When Carson Palmer was drafted first overall in 2003, the plan from the beginning was to let him hold the clipboard for his entire rookie season. He wouldn’t play a down, instead he would study the playbook, the speed of the NFL game and all the nuances that come with it. He later became a Pro Bowl quarterback, the face of the Bengals and was considered one of the top 3 QBs in the league before he was injured. Prized Notre Dame product Brady Quinn was a first round pick that threw all of eight passes his rookie season, yet people are still confident that he is going to be the successful future quarterback for the Cleveland Browns (or another franchise perhaps.) Fourth overall draft pick Philip Rivers didn’t take any significant snaps for two years and has become a Pro Bowl, division winning quarterback. So I ask, why rush Jets QB Mark Sanchez under center?

The argument that you’re paying a player the large amount of money like the Jets are doing with Mark ($44.5 million, $28 million guaranteed) is unrelated to whether or not he can do his job better than anyone else on the team. Palmer and Rivers were both drafted higher than Sanchez and earned equally impressive contracts from their teams, yet it was understood that they would sit for a significant amount of time. If Mark Sanchez comes out of training camp as the best QB on the Jets’ roster, then and only then should he be starting an NFL game.

Sanchez’s main competition for the starting gig is fourth year man Kellen Clemens. I’m not going to say Clemens has a resume that screams starting quarterback, but as a player that was once deemed the future for the team, he hasn’t necessarily done enough wrong to be tossed to the wayside either. The Jets game plan this year under new coach Rex Ryan isn’t rocket science. With a strong offensive line and running game, they’re going to run the ball and play excellent defense to win games. As a player that has as much experience in the system as Clemens does, I don’t see why they can’t let him hand the ball off and be a game manager until Sanchez earns the right to hold the reigns of the offense. If that happens this season, New Yorkers should be OK with it. If it doesn’t, they should be OK with that too. The quarterback of a professional football team needs to earn the respect of his teammates and coaching staff in order to truly be a success at his job, and until Sanchez does that he should hold that clipboard, study up and work hard. Being patient could mean the difference between ending up with another Philip Rivers or having the second coming of David Carr as the future of your franchise.
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