Mark Sanchez and 6 NFL Players Clicking at Just the Right Time

The shrine room in the Canton, Ohio Pro Football Hall of Fame is filled with the busts of players who were depended on when a game hung in the balance. It is a long lineage of pro football personalities whose star shined brightest when games needed to be won, and when opportunities needed to be seized.

There are a few rare players in the current NFL era who have the same ability to capture lightning in a bottle at just the right point in the season and there are surely many who did not make this list, but these are some of the players who have helped position their teams for a playoff run this season.

Mark Sanchez

The signal caller for Gang Greene has built his young reputation solely on filling this role. In three short seasons he has become a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde in Metropolis, an autumn goat that flips some inert switch and becomes a late season savior for Rex Ryan and his New York Jets.

The 2011 season has been no exception to the rule for the man referred to, often with bitterness, as the Sanchize. The final three weeks of the regular season have proven to be the prime moments for Sanchez to exhibit the talent and effectiveness under center that earned him the fifth pick in the 2009 NFL Draft.

One third of the touchdowns thrown by Sanchez in this career-best 2011 campaign have come in the past three weeks and he has thrown only two interceptions in the last four weeks. Sanchez has maintained a QB Rating above 83 for the past three weeks including a season-high 121.3 rating last week, albeit against a porous Chiefs defense.

Sanchez has done, and continues to do, the one thing that quarterbacks gunning for a playoff spot are paid to do. He makes the NY Jets the sort of unpredictable force opposing coaches would rather not face late in the season with your playoff fate hanging in the balance.

Drew Brees

To include the five-time Pro Bowl and former Super Bowl championship quarterback of the New Orleans Saints needs further explanation. Many would say that Brees has no down time throughout a season, doesn’t have the waxes and wanes or the ebb and flows of other players that would make his late season surges particularly notable.

To my own point, there may be no other player in the NFL other than perhaps Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady whose point of “clicking” with an offense may be the entire season, including season end. A closer statistical look though shows that Brees might be turning it on later in the season than his counterparts.

Following two less than inspiring narrow victories against mediocre Tampa Bay in Week 9 and Atlanta in Week 10, the Saints offense was left with plenty of passing yards from Brees to show for its efforts, but lacked the dominating offense performance that typically separates the Saints from their opponents on the scoreboard.

In the three weeks that followed, Brees easily threw for over 1,000 yards and led his offense to 102 points. The Saints offense has suddenly returned to its former self and every NFC defense is surely on notice.

Eli Manning

There may be no better example of a player who brings his very best at the most crucial times than the body of work Eli Manning has assembled this season. There is absolutely no argument against the reality that without Eli Manning, the New York Giants not only fail to make the playoffs this year, they do not even compete against many of the teams they have faced this year.

It is unusual to include the quarterback of a team that has lost four of their last five decisions, on a list of players who are peaking at the opportune time. The fact that the Giants are in a strong position to win the NFC East, regardless of their recent troubles, stands as evidence that their offensive captain has kept them in the game.

Eli Manning has 1,153 passing yards over just his past three outings. That statistic alone in and of itself is remarkable. His last minute, late game heroics against Dallas one week ago may have single-handedly saved their season and his near-miracle against the unbeaten Green Bay Packers in Week 13 stand as the most recent examples of how Manning has developed into one of the best clutch quarterbacks in the game today.

Matt Prater

This entry was one I could not resist. Of all the hoopla revolving around the media phenomenon that is TebowMania, it has not been divine intervention that has lifted Tim Tebow to mythical status; it was not the hand of grand omnipotence. It has been the golden foot of Denver kicker Matt Prater that has made all of this insanity possible.

The Elam to his Elway, Prater has saved Tim Tebow from the purgatory of the draft’s most busted quarterbacks by launching game winning field goals including a 52-yard winner against Miami, one against San Diego and two against Chicago—a 59-yard bomb to send the game into overtime and an equally ridiculous 51-yarder to win the game.

Matt Ryan

An inconsistent defense, a suddenly futile running game, and the distraction of an ill coach does not a Super Bowl recipe make—usually. For the Atlanta Falcons, an injection of "Matty Ice” has done just the trick to maintain their winning ways in the NFC South.

Since their loss to eventual division leader Houston on December 4, the Falcons have amassed seven touchdowns and over 70 points in their last two games in large part to Ryan’s revival. Ryan has had two consecutive solid performances, producing 120.5 and 137.3 QB ratings in those two victories.

If the Falcons continue to compete for a spot in the muddled NFC playoff picture, they can thank the efforts of their young quarterback.

Rob Gronkowski

For a time it seemed that there was no New England Patriot who could compete for Tom Brady’s attention on the football field other than Wes Welker. That was until a 6’6” 265 pound gift of a tight end was laid at the feet of the three-time World Champion.

Gronkowski has come on as a premier receiver in the NFL to a degree that it has redefined the role of the tight end in offenses today. More importantly for the Patriots, the offensive dominance that the man known as Gronk has shown as a Patriot could not have come at a better time.

Opposing defenses had begun to figure out the Brady-Welker connection enough to limit its game-changing effectiveness. With a (predictably) ineffective Chad Ochocinco and Deion Branch as his alternatives, Brady was suddenly left with few options to get the Patriots into the end zone. Gronkowski has done an unbelievable record-setting job in filling that role.

In only his second year as a pro, Gronkowski has effortlessly surpassed over 1,000 yards and has been on the receiving end of 15 Brady touchdown tosses. Quite simply, Gronk has changed the Patriots game at precisely the right time for Belichick and company.