Mark Sanchez dived for the end zone ... and the Jets' hierarchy gasped.
The prized rookie quarterback, in a live goal-line drill, created anxious moments when he took off and ran for the end zone. On the first play, LB Bart Scott was in position for a kill shot, but he pulled up, allowing Sanchez to go unscathed.
"That's a bad career decision," Scott told Sanchez.
Moments later, Sanchez was bumped out of bounds by S Jim Leonhard on a bootleg. That apparently was a little too much for GM Mike Tannenbaum.
"Tannenbaum came over to me and (was like), 'Rex!' " Ryan said later, laughing. "You know the look on his face. I'm like, 'I know, I know.' The next time Woody (Johnson) sees him do that, shoot, we're in trouble. But Jimmy was smart. He let him off and never knocked him down.
You have to love the rookie showing that kind of guts, even if it's not the way you want him to show it. It's all part of the learning curve. You just hope he gets the dangerous mistakes like that out of the way in practice and quickly learns from them.