Right now Mark Sanchez has all Jets fans hopeful of big things. I keep thinking back, though, to something ESPN's Tedy Bruschi said about him a week ago leading up to the Jets-Pats game.
"But when Sanchez gets going and things are going well, I think he's a great quarterback. His attitude is infectious. He's a leader of that team. But when things go bad I think he tanks it. Right now I see Mark Sanchezas a front-runner, and that's not something that you want at that quarterback position."
It's easy to knock Bruschi as a guy with an agenda heading into a big game, but I think there's some truth to what he said. I think "tanks" is a bit strong, but a concern I have is that his emotions get high when things are going well and low when they don't. You can see it in his body language on the sideline. You could see it in Hard Knocks when he was pranking Brian Schottenheimer one day and sulking inconsolably over how much he "sucks" the next. Last year he threw 20 interceptions. Of those, 17 came in a 5 games. Once Mark got off to a slow start, things snowballed. He couldn't shake it off.
Part of being a great quarterback is avoiding the temptation to get too low after a mistake. We saw a lot to be encouraged about last week from Sanchez. It looks like he might be turning the corner. The next question is whether he will be able to shake off an inevitable slow start in a game at some point tis season.