Mark Sanchez needs more help
Jets QB can't be a franchise quarterback if the team can't get him help
By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider
After the end of the 2004 season, then-Green Bay Packers president Bob Harlan had a tough decision to make.
Head coach (and general manager) Mike Sherman was coming off a season in which the Green and Gold battled back from a slew of injuries and a 1-4 start to win the NFC North title for the third consecutive year. As impressive as this accomplishment was, Harlan realized he had to take the general manager title away from Sherman because his workaholic ways were negatively impacting his performance.
Harlan knew that although an organization will ask its employees to give as much of themselves as possible, it also has to know when their workload is becoming too much for them to handle. This was the case with Sherman, and when Harlan tried to get him to cut back on some of the nonessential items (he would even show up at scouting events held at the most remote locations imaginable), Sherman wouldn't. So Harlan had to make the difficult choice to cut Sherman's workload.
The New York Jets may be creating their own lesson in overburdening a willing employee. This is certainly the case in how they've put together the offensive personnel helping Mark Sanchez this season.
This reality might be lost in the Jets' euphoria following their 27-24 comeback win against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night, but the fact remains that there are numerous metric and scouting reasons to believe the personnel changes made by New York this offseason were so detrimental that they will almost certainly stunt Sanchez's professional growth in the short term.
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The most telling place to start could be with that game's hero, Plaxico Burress.
For all of the kudos Burress is receiving for his key 26-yard touchdown reception that brought the Jets back into the game late, it should be noted that his catch occurred against Bryan McCann, a 5-foot-10, fifth-string cornerback who was playing in only his 10th NFL game. To beat that level of competition is not a mark of excellence. It was a nice moment for Burress, but let's not delude ourselves that it was some coming-out milestone and an indicator of future returns.
Just consider Burress' historical metrics. In his last full season (2007 with the New York Giants), Burress gained only 7.9 yards per attempt (YPA) on vertical passes (defined as those aerials thrown 11 or more yards downfield, or exactly the types of routes that Burress is supposed to excel at).
To put that YPA total into perspective, consider that it ranked 63rd out of 69 qualifying wide receivers that season. In other words, Burress wasn't a dominant downfield threat four years ago, even though his frame seems to imply as much, so why would anyone think he could be one today now that he is 34 years old and has gone through everything that happened to him since then?
What boggles the mind even further about this is that the Jets had one of the best vertical receivers in the league last year and let him go via free agency. Braylon Edwards' 12.7 vertical YPA in 2010 ranked 10th among wideouts with at least 40 vertical targets.
It has been noted that Edwards wouldn't have signed with the Jets for a lesser contract than Santonio Holmes received, but part of that signing failure has to fall on the team. When it comes down to it, in the world of free-agent recruiting, it's up to the people in charge to find a way to get it done, and New York simply didn't get it done in this case. Edwards is a divisive figure among fans, but he's a better player than Burress -- there's no way around it.
Losing the big-play impact of one of the top vertical wide receivers in pro football and replacing him with an aging version is bad enough, but what compounds it is the fact that other than Holmes, the Jets really don't have any explosive players on this offense.
Derrick Mason does a good job on short passes (6.9 YPA last year, tied for 22nd), but against the Cowboys he looked every bit like a 37-year-old player who was only one season removed from a short-lived retirement. He gained only 19 yards on six targets and had almost zero burst after the catch.
Dustin Keller is solid enough on vertical throws (12.0 YPA last year, 15th among tight ends) but his 36 targets at that route depth shows he simply can't be a consistent downfield threat for this offense.
Elsewhere, rookie Jeremy Kerley seems to be an emerging target in the passing game, but that says more about what the Jets have lost, and perhaps the absence of Brad Smith, than it assures us Kerley is a star on the rise.
The problem could be just as bad in the backfield. New York wants Shonn Greene to take over as a true bell cow running back, but he fared quite poorly last year in the good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA) metric. This statistic gauges how well a running back does when he receives a good blocking situation (which is loosely defined as when the blockers do not allow the defense to do anything to disrupt the running play).
Greene posted a 5.6 mark in this category, a total that was tied for the seventh-lowest in the league among running backs with 100 or more carries. That number wasn't even the best on the Jets, as wily old vet LaDainian Tomlinson was able to rack up a 5.8 GBYPA mark in 2010.
All of these shortcomings didn't prevent New York from putting together a comeback win against the Cowboys, but they were a significant part of why Sanchez posted the fourth-lowest Total QBR score (17.6) in Week 1.
Quarterbacks like Philip Rivers and Peyton Manning have proved that it's possible for a quarterback to raise the level of play of those around him, but that trait isn't one that develops overnight. It can take many seasons. To ask Sanchez to do that in what amounts to only his fourth year as a starting quarterback at the collegiate/pro level could end up being a case study in the perils of asking someone to do too much too soon.
Jets QB can't be a franchise quarterback if the team can't get him help
By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider
After the end of the 2004 season, then-Green Bay Packers president Bob Harlan had a tough decision to make.
Head coach (and general manager) Mike Sherman was coming off a season in which the Green and Gold battled back from a slew of injuries and a 1-4 start to win the NFC North title for the third consecutive year. As impressive as this accomplishment was, Harlan realized he had to take the general manager title away from Sherman because his workaholic ways were negatively impacting his performance.
Harlan knew that although an organization will ask its employees to give as much of themselves as possible, it also has to know when their workload is becoming too much for them to handle. This was the case with Sherman, and when Harlan tried to get him to cut back on some of the nonessential items (he would even show up at scouting events held at the most remote locations imaginable), Sherman wouldn't. So Harlan had to make the difficult choice to cut Sherman's workload.
The New York Jets may be creating their own lesson in overburdening a willing employee. This is certainly the case in how they've put together the offensive personnel helping Mark Sanchez this season.
This reality might be lost in the Jets' euphoria following their 27-24 comeback win against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night, but the fact remains that there are numerous metric and scouting reasons to believe the personnel changes made by New York this offseason were so detrimental that they will almost certainly stunt Sanchez's professional growth in the short term.
<OFFER>
The most telling place to start could be with that game's hero, Plaxico Burress.
For all of the kudos Burress is receiving for his key 26-yard touchdown reception that brought the Jets back into the game late, it should be noted that his catch occurred against Bryan McCann, a 5-foot-10, fifth-string cornerback who was playing in only his 10th NFL game. To beat that level of competition is not a mark of excellence. It was a nice moment for Burress, but let's not delude ourselves that it was some coming-out milestone and an indicator of future returns.
Just consider Burress' historical metrics. In his last full season (2007 with the New York Giants), Burress gained only 7.9 yards per attempt (YPA) on vertical passes (defined as those aerials thrown 11 or more yards downfield, or exactly the types of routes that Burress is supposed to excel at).
To put that YPA total into perspective, consider that it ranked 63rd out of 69 qualifying wide receivers that season. In other words, Burress wasn't a dominant downfield threat four years ago, even though his frame seems to imply as much, so why would anyone think he could be one today now that he is 34 years old and has gone through everything that happened to him since then?
What boggles the mind even further about this is that the Jets had one of the best vertical receivers in the league last year and let him go via free agency. Braylon Edwards' 12.7 vertical YPA in 2010 ranked 10th among wideouts with at least 40 vertical targets.
It has been noted that Edwards wouldn't have signed with the Jets for a lesser contract than Santonio Holmes received, but part of that signing failure has to fall on the team. When it comes down to it, in the world of free-agent recruiting, it's up to the people in charge to find a way to get it done, and New York simply didn't get it done in this case. Edwards is a divisive figure among fans, but he's a better player than Burress -- there's no way around it.
Losing the big-play impact of one of the top vertical wide receivers in pro football and replacing him with an aging version is bad enough, but what compounds it is the fact that other than Holmes, the Jets really don't have any explosive players on this offense.
Derrick Mason does a good job on short passes (6.9 YPA last year, tied for 22nd), but against the Cowboys he looked every bit like a 37-year-old player who was only one season removed from a short-lived retirement. He gained only 19 yards on six targets and had almost zero burst after the catch.
Dustin Keller is solid enough on vertical throws (12.0 YPA last year, 15th among tight ends) but his 36 targets at that route depth shows he simply can't be a consistent downfield threat for this offense.
Elsewhere, rookie Jeremy Kerley seems to be an emerging target in the passing game, but that says more about what the Jets have lost, and perhaps the absence of Brad Smith, than it assures us Kerley is a star on the rise.
The problem could be just as bad in the backfield. New York wants Shonn Greene to take over as a true bell cow running back, but he fared quite poorly last year in the good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA) metric. This statistic gauges how well a running back does when he receives a good blocking situation (which is loosely defined as when the blockers do not allow the defense to do anything to disrupt the running play).
Greene posted a 5.6 mark in this category, a total that was tied for the seventh-lowest in the league among running backs with 100 or more carries. That number wasn't even the best on the Jets, as wily old vet LaDainian Tomlinson was able to rack up a 5.8 GBYPA mark in 2010.
All of these shortcomings didn't prevent New York from putting together a comeback win against the Cowboys, but they were a significant part of why Sanchez posted the fourth-lowest Total QBR score (17.6) in Week 1.
Quarterbacks like Philip Rivers and Peyton Manning have proved that it's possible for a quarterback to raise the level of play of those around him, but that trait isn't one that develops overnight. It can take many seasons. To ask Sanchez to do that in what amounts to only his fourth year as a starting quarterback at the collegiate/pro level could end up being a case study in the perils of asking someone to do too much too soon.
