The Sancheimer


I've been a big supporter of Sanchez pretty much from the beginning. He has a kind of late game swagger that is never false. He just brings it late in the play in fourth quarters in a way that few young QBs do. He is what you call might call "winning". But he also of course is flawed. He isn't great at reads, lacks game feel for when not to make a mistake, and perhaps most painfully, isn't accurate. It has always felt like the OC (what's his name?) has modeled the offense around every single one of Sanchez's weaknesses in an attempt to harness and control him.

But recent weeks seem to even cast doubt on that. Even when Schottenheimer starts throwing middle deep and the Jets get the run game going, Sanchez seems to not be able to climb out of his funk. And his sideline body language and interview monotony are not speaking leader. It feels like what began as an OC problem - horribly exacerbated by practically a whole new receiver corps, a porous OL, injuries to RBs that know how to block, and defenses that are just jumping on the shallow throw - has now morphed into an OC-QB problem. We have witnessed the birth of The Sanchiemer a mythical creature of bizarre DNA of which fouls up 1st Quarters, 1st halves and game ends with surprising creativity. I've honestly lost all ability to tell who's fault it is anymore.

I cling to my old beliefs that Sanchez is a unique and instinctive QB who if put in the right position can be a Super Bowl QB, but mostly it is out of habit now. The old Sanchez has nearly been eclipsed by The Sancheimer. A lot happens to a QB when your pocket time is shrunk even by a half second, and you start getting hit. And in many respects Sanchez lived a little high on the hog in his first years. But Sanchez strikes me as a confidence guy. He needs his confidence UP in order to perform, and he does not perform well when he gets down (which he appears prone to). Ryan is running around trying to pump Sanchez up, but it may be that all the things that happened this year produced a snowball effect, and now Sanchez and Schottenheimer have somehow fused together, in a single system of offensive failure, their fates somewhat tied together.