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On Valentine’s Day, Mark Sanchez broke his silence with an eclectic attempt at humor.
It was the tweet heard around the football world. Sanchez asked Santonio Holmes to be his Valentine. Was that a good idea? Let’s take a look.
Santonio Holmes and Mark Sanchez have a rocky relationship.
Late in the year, Holmes blew off a passing game meeting called by Sanchez.
In the Jets season finale in Miami Gardens against the Dolphins, Holmes was pulled off the field by offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer due to his bad attitude.
Holmes isn’t a big fan of Sanchez.
It’s less about personality, and more about the quarterback’s inconsistency.
A few unnamed Jets told the Daily News, following the season, that the Jets should dump Holmes because of his attitude.
Well, that isn’t going to happen. He’s likely going to be the team for the next two years, based on the guaranteed money that Woody Johnson owes him.
So a big focus entering this off-season is the Holmes-Sanchez relationship, and how to improve it.
Sanchez had been very quiet since the end of the season about Holmes, and all things Jets. He hasn’t done any interviews since the day after the Miami game, and didn’t attend the Super Bowl, probably leaving some appearance money on the table. He’s kept a low profile.
But he finally broke his silence, sort of, with an attempt to break the ice with Holmes.
On Valentine’s Day, Sanchez tweeted, “@santonio10 you want to be my Valentine?
Attached to the tweet, was a picture of the Valentine’s gift pictured above.
Holmes has yet to respond, but it’s not because he’s not on Twitter. He has tweeted a few times about his NBA video game being broken.
But he has not responded to Sanchez’s bizarre attempt at humor.
And it’s possible the Sanchez tweet could end up making the relationship worse.
“It’s not a smart move,” said one long-time NFL writer who has been around Holmes a lot. “Holmes is pretty humorless and I don’t think he’ll find it funny.”
Remember that old game show, “Make me laugh?” It was a show were comics tried to make contestants laugh. If they refrained from laughing, they won cash prizes.
Holmes would win the grand prize.
Here is the take of a source close to the Jets one the Sanchez tweet.
“I guess I can understand the expected criticism,” said the source. “If you already thought Sanchez was flaky, immature, this underscores it. After all, Sanchez could have sent this to Holmes as an email, circulated it to his small circle of friends, and no one would have known. But he tweeted it so it’s out there for all to see. He wanted it seen.
“I can at least understand some criticism of the Valentine’s day thing. It seems he’s playing into his bashers’ hands by doing something goofy like this. Other players see this as being an inappropriate response, making light of the serious locker room situation at the end of the season, then maybe it was the wrong thing to do.”
The only way this is not a big deal, is if Holmes and Sanchez were in on this together.
“What if he and Holmes have already patched things up, and this is a goof and the two guys are in on the joke,” asked the source close to the Jets.
We will find out soon enough.
But the feeling here, is that this was a mistake.
It’s hard to believe, that a kid from the mean streets of Belle Glade, wants to be his quarterback’s Valentine, whether it’s a joke or not.
But then again, as we have said before, we don’t think it’s possible to truly get through to Holmes, so it might not make it much worse.
It’s already pretty bad.
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