The list of quarterbacks for the remaining Super Bowl contenders reads like a Who’s Who of NFL passing leaders — Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Drew Brees and ... Mark Sanchez?
Sanchez, a first-year player with 12 touchdown passes and 20 interceptions, would become the first rookie quarterback to start in the Super Bowl should the longshot New York Jets beat Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday’s AFC title game.
The 23-year-old Sanchez, a student last year at University of Southern California (USC), has navigated the ups and downs of a rookie season and now operates a ball-control running attack that complements the Jets’ rugged, top-ranked defense.
Cutting down interceptions, using sound judgment about when to throw the ball away and when to take a sack rather than risk a turnover, have become as important to his job description as passing for touchdowns.
“You just learn from each experience, and understand how important these games are,” Sanchez told reporters on Friday. “They are just so important.”
“Just the value of maintaining the football and drawing out your time of possession. If we keep doing that, we’ll be all right,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez has accepted a more conservative approach on offense as coach Rex Ryan, himself a rookie, stressed a “ground-and-pound” attack that counted on a ferocious defense to keep games close and winnable.
Earlier in the season, the young quarterback threw five interceptions against Buffalo, four picks against New England and three more in a loss last month to Atlanta that coach Ryan thought had scuttled the Jets’ hopes of reaching the playoffs.
Since then, Sanchez has stuck to Ryan’s script.
Relying on a powerful offensive line and the hard running of Thomas Jones and rookie Shonn Greene, Sanchez has thrown two touchdown passes and just one interception in a four-game winning streak that has put the Jets on the brink of the Super Bowl.
“I know he’s got a good grasp of what we need out of that position,” Ryan said. “He is doing a great job.”
“I think he’s in tune with what the team needs and I think that’s what gives us such great confidence,” Ryan said.
The Jets reached the postseason with a 9-7 record following victories over the Colts and Cincinnati Bengals, who rested players since they had already clinched playoff berths.
Rated 50-1 in the postseason, the visiting New Yorkers beat the Bengals again and last week knocked out San Diego, ending the Chargers’ 11-game winning streak and setting up a rematch with the Colts.
Underdog status is a familiar role for the Jets, whose only Super Bowl win came when quarterback Joe Namath made good a guarantee of victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts to end the 1968 season.
Since that victory, which is credited with cementing the AFL’s merger into the NFL, fans of the green and white have come to greet near misses and disappointing seasons with a mutter of “Same old Jets.”
The charisma and confidence of coach Ryan and the promise of young quarterback Sanchez have changed that sentiment this season, and the rookie signal caller cannot wait for tomorrow.
“It’s the coolest thing in the world just knowing that everybody in that stadium, everybody on your team, on their team, is watching and waiting for you to say go, waiting for you to hike the ball,” Sanchez said on Friday. “It’s going to be great.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later