It has already been a pretty big week for the New York Jets, as they’ve been making personnel changes to repair the problems that have kept them from fulfilling head coach Rex Ryan’s wrongly predicted Super Bowl victories before each of the last three seasons. The first move came with the team kindly asking offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to resign, and the second move came as the Jets hired former Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano to replace him. As a Dolphins fan, I can only offer a mild “Meh, we’ll see” to that latter move.
Now, though, some players are allegedly speaking out that the problem wasn’t completely in Schottenheimer’s inability to use his offensive weapons, as much as it’s the fault of weapon Numero Uno, QB Mark Sanchez.
“They don’t want to be truthful with him,” one prominent player said of the way that the organization has handled Sanchez. “They treat him like a baby instead of a man. He goes in a hole when someone tells him the truth.”
“So that should tell you everything,” the source said. “He just doesn’t have the mental toughness to be great… especially in New York.”
“They see the organization babying him,” said a Jets source. “They see him with a sense of entitlement. He’s been given all this and hasn’t done anything. They call him ‘San-chise.’ They make him the face of the organization. They gave him the captain tag. He’s not a captain. He should have never been a captain.”
(Via the New York Daily News)
Ah, my favorite type of sources – anonymous. There’s nothing quite like a player calling his teammate a coddled baby and refusing to go on record for it (also check out our cooler older brothers’ take at KSK). But the quotes are out there now for the whole world to see, and that’s all that matters. So how do these anonymous players think the team should handle it? Acquire Peyton Manning, of course.
“We already have his coach — Tom Moore,” one well-respected player said. “Plus, he’s a field general and will get everyone lined up. He will get his playmakers the ball. We can win a Super Bowl with Peyton.”
So can a lot of teams. In fact, if he’s healthy, the Indianapolis Colts can win a Super Bowl with him, too, which I assume is their plan, as opposed to trading him so they can completely start over with Andrew Luck, whom they’ll probably draft with the top pick in April. Luck or not, I can’t see a situation in which Jim Irsay trades a healthy Manning – or lets him walk – to a team in his own conference that is arguably a QB away from being a Super Bowl champion. Granted, nobody can predict what a free spirit like Irsay might do, as evidenced by his canning of Bill Polian, but I assume that as long as Manning can throw a ball, he’ll be doing so in a Colts jersey.
But that’s the fun of the Jets and the New York sports media. It doesn’t have to make sense, or even be remotely possible. It just has to be a convenient thought that looks good on paper. Much like a Super Bowl prediction.
