Week 5 Waiver Wire: Why Now Is a Good Time To Pounce on Mark Sanchez

Using New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez as your starting fantasy QB is akin to playing with fire.

Or maybe it's running headlong into fire. Either way, you're definitely asking for trouble when you start Sanchez.

And trouble is exactly what Sanchez brought his fantasy owners in Week 4. The Baltimore Ravens limited him to 119 yards on 11 completions, and he also committed four turnovers, three of which were returned for touchdowns.

Yeah, it was a bad performance, and many fantasy owners paid the price.

Many of those same owners decided to dump Sanchez right then and there. His ownership percentage is down in both ESPN and Yahoo! leagues, and it's easy to argue that this is the way it should be.

The dilemma is that bye weeks are kicking in this week, and that means plenty of fantasy owners are going to need a temporary starting QB.

If you do, I implore you to consider picking up Sanchez if he's available in your league. You'll be playing with fire, but I don't think you're going to get burned this week.

I say this primarily because the Jets are going to be playing the New England Patriots. The Pats have done a pretty good job of forcing turnovers, but their pass defense is utterly atrocious. They're allowing roughly 370 passing yards per game, which is dead last in the NFL. The Jets have promised to return to their "ground and pound" style of play, but the way to beat the Patriots is through the air.

It may seem like I'm going out on a limb by saying this, but I actually think Sanchez is going to be able to beat the Pats through the air. Before he was embarrassed by the Ravens, you have to realize that Sanchez played pretty well in each of the Jets' first three games. He topped 300 yards passing twice, and threw two touchdown passes in each game, which were balanced against four interceptions.

Sure, these numbers don't make Sanchez a great fantasy producer, but he was certainly a solid fantasy producer.

So if you generally use Tony Romo, Joe Flacco, Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford or Rex Grossman as your starting QB, you could do worse than picking up Sanchez as a stopgap starter. He's not going to put up gaudy numbers, but he'll put up numbers.

Besides, it's not like he can be any worse than he was in Week 4.

At least, I don't think so...