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It’s kind of funny – the New York Jets deferred on the coin flip, chosing to play defense first. But their defense gave up a long TD drive, and their offense went right down the field. They might want to re-think this approach.
On the Jets first possession, Mark Sanchez effectively dinked and dunked down the field with a nice compliment from the running game.
After running on the first two plays of the drive for a first down, Sanchez hit Santonio Holmes on the next two plays. First, on third-and-four, Sanchez hit Holmes for a gain of five on the short left side.
On the next play, Sanchez ran an effective bootleg to the right side and hit Santonio Holmes, who had a collosal mismatch with OLB Ryan Kerrigan on him.
Two plays later, Sanchez dumped to LT on the short left side, and he ran for 16 yards, got slammed out of bounds by safety O.J. Atogwe, and re-injured his left knee.
Let’s fast forward to late in this 17-play, 74-yard drive.
On a third-and-three late in the drive, Sanchez made a terrific play. He looked left, and then turned right and hit Burress for a gain of eight. Sanchez does best on his second read, when his second read is actually the object of the play, if you know what I’m saying – where the first read is a fake read.
The pass to Burress advanced the ball to the one, and Shonn Greene took it in two plays later.
The Jets next possession of the game, in the early second quarter, was a three-and-out.
On the Jets next possession, they went on a 10-play, 57-yard drive which resulted in a field goal.
On the first play of the drive, Sanchez hit Greene on a crossing route. It took a while to develop, and Sanchez showed good poise in the pocket, as defenders were about to hit him, he calmly threw to Greene over the middle.
On the next play, Sanchez ran a bootleg to the right side, and hit Santonio Holmes for a gain of 12 on the short right side. The pass was a little high, and Holmes made an impressive one-handed catch. By the way, this was another case where Kerrigan was covering Holmes, and the Jets took advantage of it. Playing in space isn’t Kerrigan’s strength.
Two plays later, Sanchez and Burress found a hole in the middle of the zone in the middle of the field, and the quarterback lofted a pass over Atogwe, and Plaxico gained 18 yards.
After runs by Greene for eight and three yards for another first down, the drive kind of fizzled, with a pair of incompletions, and then pass to Keller short of the first down and the Jets settled for a 45-yard field goal.
But Sanchez does deserve credit for the seven-yard completion to Keller at the end of the drive. Even though it was short of the first down, it turned a 52-yard attempt, into a more makable 45-yarder.
The Jets got the ball back one more time in the second quarter, but Sanchez took a knee.
We will have Part II of Mark Sanchez tomorrow morning by 10 AM.
