With Mark Sanchez, Patience May Be a Virtue for Jets Fans

During the 2008 offseason, the Jets spent a significant amount of money building up their offensive line through the acquisitions of Alan Faneca from the Steelers and Damien Woody from the Detroit Lions.

Despite a new and improved offensive line, there was still one piece missing on the offensive side that would be crucial to the team’s success: a quarterback.

So, the Jets went out and acquired Brett Favre.

Favre was 38 years old and coming out of retirement, as short-lived as it may have been.

But who cares? This is Brett Favre we are talking about. The guy had brought Green Bay to the NFC Championship just the year before.

Eleven games into the 2008 season, with an 8-3 record, the Jets were well on their way to an AFC playoff berth.

Fans were happy and players were happy. Favre was the hero of New York, and the Jets' front office personnel were looking like the smartest men in the NFL.

Then, as has happened so often throughout the team’s 49-year history, disaster struck, and yet another season ended in disappointment.

The Jets dropped four out of their last five games, and within days of their 24-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins—who were riding their way into the playoffs on the back of former Jets quarterback Chad Pennington—Eric Mangini was fired and Favre was released.

It’s amazing how things can change in just a month.

Heading into the 2009 season, the Jets still have their talented and very expensive offensive line in place, yet up until two weeks ago, they were once again lacking that central piece of the puzzle: a quarterback.

In an aggressive move, the Jets traded up for the fifth pick in the 2009 NFL Draft from the Cleveland Browns, where their former coach Mangini is now employed.

The Jets selected junior quarterback Mark Sanchez from USC.

Sanchez’s stock began to rise during USC’s Rose Bowl victory in January, where he threw for 415 yards and four touchdowns, plus completed a Rose Bowl-record 80 percent of his passes.

Sanchez was considered to have one of the strongest arms of any quarterback in the draft, but more impressive than his arm strength was the intelligence, confidence, and leadership skills he displayed during the lead-up to the NFL draft.

The Jets certainly needed a quarterback (they have for years), and Mark Sanchez was the best quarterback they could have legitimately gotten their hands on during the 2009 offseason.

Sanchez could very well wind up being the Jets' starting quarterback for many years to come, and a very good one at that.

However, let’s not raise the bar too high for Sanchez right off the bat.

We need to remember that Sanchez only started 16 games while at USC, and despite all the expectations he will face as the starting quarterback for a New York football team, he might not be the next Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco.

That’s not to say that he won’t wind up being a very good, maybe even a great NFL quarterback; it just might not happen for him as quickly as it happened for Flacco or Ryan.

With only 16 games in the NFL season, patience is not a virtue possessed by many fans, coaches, or members of the front office.

But the fact of the matter is that more often than not, rookie quarterbacks don’t perform very well, particularly when they are immediately thrust into a starting role.

The Jets have a solid offensive line in place and now have a quarterback for the future.

Despite what may transpire during the 2009 season with Sanchez at the helm, let’s keep the pitchforks hidden away for at least a year or two while this young quarterback continues to develop.