Mark Sanchez Throws Jets' Season Away

I should have known it before Mark Sanchez and the NY Jets' loss to the New England Patriots in Foxboro on Sunday; I just didn't want to admit it yet. But it's pretty much official now at 4-6 the New York Jets are out of the NFL Playoff hunt. I should have known it after last weeks loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The New England Patriots are not the same team the Jets faced in the second game of the season when Tom Brady was still working off the rust and Wes Welker was not back yet. And the New York Jets are not the team we once thought they were at 3-0 or even 3-3. They clearly played over their heads at the beginning of the season, particularly Mark Sanchez who has looked every bit like the Rookie he is the last two months.

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Rex Ryan talked a good game. It was fun while it lasted (three weeks). It was really fun beating the Patriots in week two. I guess that was like Jets fans' Super Bowl for 2009. There's always next year. Bill Belichick's New England Patriots are the class of the AFC East and the Miami Dolphins are still in the Wildcard hunt. Rex Ryan says that Mark Sanchez is the Jets Quarterback of the present and the future, so for now we'll just have to sit back and watch him throw interceptions and fumble the ball and hopefully learn from his mistakes.


Rex Ryan 11/22/09 AP Photo
Rex Ryan's defense has also been a disappointment this year. Expected to be a strong point of this years Jets team, the defense continues to fail. This past Sunday they couldn't figure out what to do about Wes Welker in the slot, giving up 15 receptions for 192 yards to him. Rex Ryan is gonna have to figure out a way to get his defense to play more inspired football in the future, or else he won't have much of a future in New York. The Jets just need to go back to the drawing board and put the pieces together. The rest of this 2009 season will just be to develop Sanchez and the Defense and evaluate the depth on the whole team. Hopefully the NY Jets can save some face the remainder of the season and learn as much as they can and go in to next season with some more talent from the draft and free agent market and put a winning program together in the near future. If not we'll be looking at another change in coaching and philosophy in 2011. Right now it seems like the rest of the season it will be the (excuse the cliche') Same Old Jets again. Oh well. I guess I can route for that other team in New York for now.

NY Jets' Statistics Lie

Wow! Look at the NY Jets Stats against the Miami Dolphins yesterday. They must have kicked the Dolphin's butt huh? The Jets dominated in all offensive and defensive Stats including 23 First Downs to the Dolphin's 10, 378 Total Net Yards to Miami's measly 104, and 6 Sacks for a loss of 60 Yards to Miami's 2 Sacks for a loss of 14 Yards. Mark Sanchez also played a solid game, going 20-35 for 265 Yards, 2 TD's and one Rushing TD. You'd expect that the Jets won; but not so fast! The one Stat that proves to be the difference in this game, the second loss to the Dolphins this season, is Kickoff Return Yardage. The Dolphins' Ted Ginn Jr. returned 6 Kickoffs for 299 Yards and 2 Touchdowns. Ironically Ginn Jr. was in the doghouse this week after a series of drops against the Saints last week, which actually cost the Dolphins the game. Benched as the starting WR, Ginn Jr. made up for his sins by coming up big on Special Teams. In the process he made the Jets Special Teams, ordinarily a strong unit, look downright terrible. I mean TWO TD's on Kickoff Returns! ONE is bad enough! But TWO! Ted Ginn Jr. became only the eighth player in NFL History to return two in the same game for touchdowns. Rex Ryan "takes his hat off" to Ginn Jr. It's hard to believe that that happened to a Mike Westhoff coached Special Teams. A complete anomally in Westhoff's career as well as in the history of NFL Football. Ironic that it should happen against the Jets in a divisional game which had huge implications in the AFC East. The Jets had a chance to be 5-3, which would have put them only a half game behind New England, and would have put the nail in the coffin of Miami, which would have been 2-5. But No. They had to lose and now they're going in to the Bye Week at 4-4 instead of two games above .500. Now Miami is 3-4, only a half game behind them. And the Jets already lost to Buffalo, so they have to win that second Buffalo game in order to have a chance of going .500 in their division. That also means they'd have to sweep the Patriots, by beating them again, and New England is looking better as the season goes on.


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Rex Ryan has told his players to go and enjoy themselves for the week off. So the Jets can enjoy the Bye week and come back in two weeks against Jacksonville (3-4) and try to turn a new leaf over and start winning. They need to go 6-2 in their second half of the season in order to be a 10-6 team. That means winning the games against the 3-4 teams like the Jaguars, and Buffalo Bills, and Tampa Bay Bucaneers(0-7), because they have some tough teams (Cincinatti Bengals, Indianapolis Colts, and the Patriots) that they'll have to beat a few of in order to go 10-6. So after Rex and the boys rest up we get to see whether they can muster up enough character and be the team Jets fans thought they were at the start of the season when they went 3-0 and the ball seemed to bounce their way. All I know is that the NY Jets can't lose this week. We'll see what the following week brings.

What do you think the New York Jets are gonna do the rest of the 2009 season? Leave a comment and let us know.