Play-by-play guys don't typically opine but in this sense it was brutal truth. One that was so clear you'd have been remiss not to say.
Mark Sanchez fumbling a low snap to seal defeat.
The quarterback who has had so many problems holding onto the ball again couldn't Monday night. Now he will no longer hold onto the starting job.
An ugly performance from the Titans gave the Jets opportunity after opportunity to capitalize. It was never more put on a platter than after the shanked punt that gave the Jets the ball back at the Tennessee 25 with 47 seconds left.
That's when Sanchez lost the ball and the game, just as it seemed he had the drive before with his aimless heave down the field that Tennessee safety Michael Griffin pounced on.
Sanchez had plenty of those types of throws, picked off four times. He threw 28 passes and completed just 13 of them for a measly 131 yards.
The Jets, the team that hasn't just had nine lives but 11 or 12, had it all so tellingly wrapped into Monday night's loss, which was really a microcosm of a whole season in one game.
Tennessee played such an ugly game that over and over again the Jets were given new life. Mark Sanchez was given the ball not once but twice with a chance to win the game, set up so beautifully that all he had to do was be careful, making one or two good throws.
Now, though, the end is here for the enigmatic fourth year quarterback from USC who has proven he is just flat out bad. There are no more excuses or support to be given for Sanchez. His quarterbacking has been so utterly painful to watch it makes you yearn for the days of Brooks Bollinger or Kellen Clemens. At this point, Greg McElroy sounds like Joe Namath in comparison.
As the Jets defense does its best to keep a game within reach, the stagnant offense sputters and worse so, Sanchez makes their rest on the sideline a short one.
It really is amazing that the Jets were not officially eliminated from playoff contention until this Week 15 embarrassment. Truth be told, the 14 weeks preceding it were not very much to write home about.
The Jets reached a climax in a Week 1 beatdown of the Bills and spiraled downward from that point on, somewhere along the way festering in a place just better than the NFL's most hapless.
Finally though the hammer dropped after weeks of this ongoing charade. Any logical observer knew full well the lifeless Jets team that lost in Seattle was not going anywhere. With an offense this bad, the playoffs would have been a joke.
Somehow though, in typical Jets fashion, they clung to life for a few weeks, stringing you along into a false belief of hope. They gave you the inkling to care again after disconnecting weeks earlier. Should've known better than to commit again, but like someone burned by a guy or girl over and over, who just can't get enough, you go back for more.
You want to remember the good times with Sanchez, the playoff and comeback wins, but you need to be slapped back to reality if that's the only way you can see it now.
Roping you in is what the Jets do best on a yearly basis, no matter who the head coach or general manager or quarterback is.
New pieces are put in place with the same result, a vicious cycle of failure. Getting rid of offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer did nothing to change the offensive pitfalls, just like getting rid of Paul Hackett injected no new life nearly a decade earlier. From Herm Edwards to Eric Mangini now to Rex Ryan and Chad Pennington to Brett Favre to Mark Sanchez, the end has always been the same - the guys in green and white walk off the field losers, hoping for better luck next year.
That still has not come.
Monday night, the Jets reached another ending point, not just of a season but an era.
Most teams are defined by their quarterback, the league's glamour position. Nothing about Mark Sanchez's play is glamorous. It has become downright putrid.
Photographic learners remember things based on pictures. I'll remember this season for a few very similar ones: Sanchez strip-sacked in overtime to lose the game in New England, "butt-fumbling" on Thanksgiving night to lose his dignity and Monday night in Tennessee finally fumbling away his job.
No comments:
Post a Comment