…the thing is, he didn’t do much last year when he had his opportunity to push Pennington out of the way. Hell, after the preseason it seemed like Brett Ratliff was pushing him for the backup spot. Of course, Pennington ended up having a great season and Ratliff might turn out to be a diamond in the rough but the fact is that Clemens didn’t step up when the job was his for the taking.

That said, I am still not sure how I feel about starting a rookie quarterback. So I would normally say start Clemens until Sanchez is really ready, but with the way the schedule is set up we can’t afford to not have our best option playing quarterback and fall behind everyone right from the start of the season. Another thing is that we basically have a nearly ideal situation for a rookie quarterback to step into: a monster o-line, a potentially dangerous group of running backs, and a safety blanket TE. Of course, it would be awesome if we had another proven WR or two, but either way I think our situation compares favorably to the Ravens’ last year and I’d dare to say our offense is better.

Of course, Clemens would be stepping into this situation as well so those all benefit him as well. So I suppose in the end it’s all about who performs best in training camp and the preseason.

I think it’s crazy to think that Clemens had a chance to push Pennington out of the way when Pennington is from my research the most accurate NFL passer. He may not have the strongest arm but that still would be an uphill battle for anybody. He’s never been truly given a chance to get the job. Even when he had a 3-5 record in that crappy year vs Pennington’s 1-7 he still never got the reigns. Mangini kept going into camp with the train of thought of open competition. Then people point out the beginning of the Favre season…he absolutely never had a shot that year. They gave him the open competition crap again and then went out and got the future HOF player (and it was a given Clemens wasn’t getting the job). Finally…now they went and drafted a QB very high in the draft. Now I like the QBs that we have had in these past few years (yes even Favre…I put the blame on Mangini for the collapse) but with what they put in front of Clemens with the Jets he was set up for failure. With the direction the team has gone maybe they should have never drafted him. I do have a feeling that it would have come back and bit us if we didn’t draft him but with the treatment that he has been receiving I feel like it still might come back to bite us once his contract is up. There is a strange comparison that I have between Tom Brady and Kellen Clemens. They both had their chance in their 2nd season to get on the field. They both had more established QBs playing in front of them. To me 1 big difference is that 1 coach/team let the backup keep the job and never looked back and the other killed the backups chance by not letting him capitolize on the experience. I’m not saying Clemens is a Brady but I am saying regardless of what the organization is doing we as fans really don’t know what we have in this guy. This is just my take on the situation. So now that I feel like I’m rambling so I’ll stop now.