New York Jets: Does the Story of Mark Sanchez and a 17-Year-Old Girl Matter?

The New York Jets' quarterback, Mark Sanchez, has just gotten his first taste of the hard-knock life.

Sanchez is supposedly involved with a 17-year-old girl named Eliza Kruger. 

The Internet is going crazy with rumors about Sanchez and his involvement with this young girl. Some say that Sanchez is dating the girl from Connecticut, while others say that they simply just "hooked up."

Either way, the big controversy here is that she is only 17, and that he is 24. 

The question I bring up now is whether or not this incident or relationship (if they are, in fact, dating) is a problem.

Does it matter that Sanchez is involved with this girl?

NO!

This Mark Sanchez story that everybody seems to be talking about is no big deal whatsoever. The "hook-up" took place in New Jersey, where the legal age of consent is 16 years old.

How do I know that this girl wanted to do it? Supposedly, Eliza posted on Facebook that Mark Sanchez had texted her after meeting him.

She was clearly excited about it. This means that, legally, this occurrence was not wrong in any way unless you think it is wrong looking at society. 

Something else that people should know is that the Jets' season is over. Had this story come out throughout the course of the season or playoffs, I would have said that this was horrible because it is a distraction to the team. 

On that note, Sanchez got lucky. This event supposedly happened on New Year's Eve. The story stayed very quiet until recently.

This could have blown up during the season and gotten Sanchez in some trouble with the media. Instead, we're sitting here, hearing about how Sanchez hooked up with a girl who wanted to hook up with him, therefore making it legal. 

The bottom line is that Sanchez did nothing wrong. The girl may have been young, but she was 17 and the legal age of consent in New Jersey is 16. She wanted to do everything that they did and that makes it legal.

This story also came out after the season, not during. This means that Sanchez did not cause his team a major distraction during their playoff run. He may have been lucky that the news didn't break earlier, but because it didn't, Sanchez should be off the hook.