Sanchez is an average QB all the way up until the playoffs start. People who say the Jets would have made it to the Super Bowl without him always leave that part out. The only way to win the Super Bowl is to play well in the playoffs. Once the playoffs start, whatever you did in the regular season no longer matters, whether it was good or bad.
In Sanchez's rookie year, after the first 3 games, he was bad. Then he played an excellent game against the Bengals in Cincinnati, a poor game against the Chargers in San Diego (but made the key play in the game, rolling out of the pocket and finding Dustin Keller in the back of the end zone), and a very good game against the Colts in Indianapolis. Thomas Jones was done by the time the playoffs rolled around, after carrying the team on his back all year. Greene had been the featured back against Cinci and San Diego, and had performed admirably. Sanchez and the Jets offense played as well as they had all year against the Colts, up until Greene went down with broken ribs. The Jets running game then completely disappeared, and the rookie QB was unable to keep pace with Peyton Manning down the stretch. The running game and defense got the Jets to that point, but those were the two units that failed the team at the crucial moment, not Sanchez.
In Sanchez's 2nd year he took a step forward, becoming an average QB (ah improvement, something Henne hasn't shown since he was a freshman in college). The Jets defense took a step back and the running game took a couple steps back, but Sanchez's improvement was able to offset that. The defense and running game were still among the best, but weren't #1 as they had been the previous year (and #1 by comfortable margins). There wasn't a single game last year that the Jets defense won on it's own. In the team's 11 wins, the Jets offense averaged 28.6 ppg. Last year, Sanchez and the Jets offense were either good, very good, or terrible. There were no average games to be found. They scored 28 or more 7 times, were in the 22-27 range 5 times, and scored 10 or less 4 times. Sanchez's QB ratings in those 4 games: 56.4, 43.3, 27.8, and 45.3. Sanchez was the sole reason for defeat in two of those games: Baltimore and Miami. In the Packers game he shared that responsibility with his receivers, who had 2 INTs wrestled out of their hands, dropped 6 passes, including a TD pass, and fumbled a ball in scoring position (most frustrating game of the year by far, completely outplayed Green Bay for 90% of the game but got shutout). The other game was the 45-3 aberration against the Pats.....we'll speak no more of that. Analysts talked about the Jets offensive struggles, but those problems were usually contained to the 1st quarter. A better QB gives the Jets 2 more wins here, maybe 3. Regardless, due to tiebreakers, we still wouldn't have taken the division from the Pats. Even with 14 wins, we'd have been in the Wildcard round, on the road, but playing the Chiefs instead of the Colts.
Now, there were 3 occasions last year where Sanchez put the team on his back and carried them to a win. 3 weeks in a row against Detroit, Cleveland, and Houston. 3 games where the Jets defense was less merely average, even coughing up leads late in the game against Cleveland and Houston. 3 games where we were unable to get the running game going at all. Sanchez and the passing game won those games for the Jets, and he made several plays that an average QB wouldn't have been able to make. Big plays down the field against Detroit, a number of escapes from pressure against both Cleveland and Houston; the game winning, 50 second, no-timeout, drive against the Texans. I feel safe saying that the Jets don't win those games without Sanchez, so subtract 3 wins from the 13 or 14 that you have above. We're back at either 10 or 11 wins, playing the Colts on the road on Wildcard weekend.
Sanchez was terrible in the first half against the Colts in the 1st round of the playoffs, but regrouped and played well in the 2nd half. I thought this was important because previously, whenever he had a terrible 1st half, he also had a terrible 2nd half. That wasn't the case here. He was 9/19 for 85 yards and an INT in the 1st half, bleh. He was 9/12 for 105 yards in the 2nd half. The Jets had 4 drives in the 2nd half, 2 of them resulted in 1 yard TD runs for Tomlinson, and a third setup Nick Folk's 32 yard, game-winning FG. Personally, I think it takes more than an average QB to be able to step up like that in the 2nd half of playoff game, on the road, against one of the NFL's marquee teams for the past decade, after playing so badly in the 1st half. Merely average QBs pack it in and go home.
Sanchez was terrific against the Patriots and the Steelers. We lost the AFCCG because our defense couldn't tackle in the 1st half and D'Brick made the biggest mistake in years, failing to pick up a blindside blitzer at the end of the 1st half. I've seen people say that Sanchez dinked and dunked against a Steeler defense that was playing prevent in the 2nd half. Prevent defense don't give up plays like this (5:04 in):
[video=youtube;P9QOeggjeAE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QOeggjeAE&t=5m4s[/video]
The Jets were forced to put the game into Sanchez's hands, on the road in Pittsburgh, and he responded.
You want a QB holding his team back? Look at Flacco. Sure, he puts up pretty numbers in the regular season, but what about these numbers: 16/30, 125 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 61.1. The Ravens should have won that game, but Flacco **** the bed. Or how about his career playoff numbers: 7 games, 98/184 53.3%, 1050 yards, 5.7 ypa, 4 TD, 7 INT, 61.6 rating. He's got a fantastic defense and running game too. You want to win in fantasy football, take Flacco. You want to win actual football games in January, Sanchez is better, much better: 6 games, 95/157 60.5%, 1155 yards, 7.4 ypa, 9 TD, 3 INT, 94.3 rating.
Dolphin fans don't want to look beyond the similarity of the regular season QB ratings of Sanchez and Henne, for fear of what they'd find if they were to look a little deeper. One is on his way to better, potentially great things. The other is going to be out of a job in a year's time, maybe sooner.