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Mark Sanchez was a little inconsistent, but managed to do enough to help the Jets win this game. Dan takes a look at the good, the bad and the ugly . . .
On the Jets first pass of the game, Sanchez ran a bootleg right, a number of defenders bit on the run fake – moving toward the middle of the field – and the quarterback hit a wide open Dustin Keller for a gain of nine. Two plays later, Sanchez hit Edwards for a short reception on the left side. The wideout and cornerback Sheldon Brown collided like a pair of rams, and the play gained six yards. This drive stalled two plays later, when Sanchez forced a pass to Edwards into double coverage over the middle. Both safeties Abe Elam and T.J. Ward were in the vicinity and crushed Edwards. The Jets kicked a field goal.
The Jets second possession started with Sanchez being called for a delay of the game. Then it ended with two unimpressive passes – safety valves to Tony Richardson for one yard and Dustin Keller for no gain. Sanchez threw a lot of dump passes in this game. He didn’t seem to see the field well.
The Jets third possession started with a 16-yard reception to Santonio Holmes on the right side. Rookie CB Joe Haden, clearly not wanting to get beat deep, gave Holmes a lot of room to work in front of him, and the Jets took advantage of it. Two plays later, Sanchez threw deep pass down the right hash mark to Holmes who wasn’t open, and plus the pass was overthrown. On the next play, Sanchez did a good job of taking advantage of a mismatch – Edwards one-on-one with S Ray Ventrone, and the quarterback hit the wide receiver over the middle for a gain of 21. Three plays later, the Jets attempted a screen that was doomed from the get-go. DT Shaun Rogers got into the back field so quickly, it messed up the timing of this play, and when Sanchez threw the ball to Tomlinson, but LB Chris Gocong, was unblocked, and stopped the runner for a loss of seven.
This drive ended with a quintessential Sanchez play, the type he enjoys his most success on. He moved around in the pocket, buying a lot of time, and finally Jerricho Cotchery sprung wide open in the middle of the end zone, and the quarterback hit him for a 25-yard touchdown. He was wide open. Ward was very late coming over.
Sanchez seems to love when plays break down and he can scramble around, and make something happen on the fly, as opposed to playing out of the Jets conventional offense. He’s also very good in a hurry-up as well – less thinking – more instincts.
Two possessions later, the Jets went on an 11-play, 80-yard TD drive. This possession was greatly assisted by two pass interference calls on the Browns. The first one, LB Scott Fujita was called for illegal contact on Keller, but this was just a five-yard call. The bigger one was when Holmes drew a call on CB Eric Wright down the left sideline – it was a 27-yard call.
While Sanchez probably dumped the ball too much to his backs in this game, one of his more successful throws to a runner came on this drive when hit Shonn Greene for a gain of 12 over the middle, bringing the ball to the Cleveland five-yard line. He ran it on a QB keeper a couple of plays later.
On the first drive of the second half, Sanchez hit Braylon Edwards for a gain of 22 on the left side. This was the most successful pass of this long drive that ended with a missed field goal. On this drive, Sanchez threw six incompletions. That is unacceptable, especially against a secondary with two rookie starters.
Late in the third quarter, Sanchez hurt his calf on a blitz up the middle by CB Mike Adams. He did return, but clearly wasn’t 100 percent, and was hobbling bad after the game.
In the middle of the fourth, Sanchez drove the Jets 56 yards on 13 plays to set up a field goal. But the successful field goal probably never should have happened because on third down, right before the kick, Sanchez threw the ball right into the hands of Elam. It should have been a pick.
In overtime, we saw another example of Sanchez loving school-yard ball, and having success with it. On a broken play, he bought a lot of time, and hit J-Co for a gain of 10 over the middle. J-Co hurt his groin on this play.
And then late in the OT, Sanchez hit Holmes for the game-winning TD. The Jets got a little lucky on this play. The Browns actually had three players around Holmes, but it seemed like they didn’t want to collide with each other, and all kind of held up, and the speedster was off to the races.
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