It’s been a strange offseason for Mark Sanchez. After weeks of Peyton Manning speculation by the Jets, which seemed to indicate that the team was losing faith in Sanchez as the quarterback who could deliver them to the promised land, the Jets then turned around and gave Sanchez a sizable three-year contract extension.
The deal includes $40.5 million in new money, bringing his total over the next five years to $58.25 million, making Sanchez the seventh highest paid NFL quarterback, according to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen.
Asked if all of the Manning speculation bothered him, Sanchez was characteristically unfazed. “Not at all,” he said. “The best part about it is, they chose to stick with me. I’m going to be their starting quarterback for the next few years here and that’s exciting. I’m the leader of this team and I’m excited to get back.”
Asked about the negative comments that were make about him earlier in the offseason, including an unnamed player calling him “lazy” and LaDainian Tomlinson calling him “pampered,” Sanchez said, “It doesn’t really bother me at all… If anything, that fuels me.” Sanchez went on to add, “If you’re an unnamed source, you don’t really speak for the team.”
The guaranteed dollars virtually ensures that Sanchez will be the starter for the next few years, and is a strong sign that the Jets are comfortable with him in that role.
“We’ve won a lot of football games with Mark as the starting quarterback of the New York Jets,” said general manager Mike Tannenbaum. “It’s not a projection, it’s not a hope, it’s not an incremental leap of faith. Here’s a three-year body of work.”
Asked about the Jets flirtation with Manning, Tannenbaum said simply, “”When a first-ballot, Hall-of-Fame quarterback becomes available, you look into it.”
The contract extension is certainly a good thing for Sanchez, and having security at the quarterback position is important to any team. But the next question is – did they overpay?
Making Sanchez the seventh highest paid quarterback seems generous by just about any metric you choose. In passer rating, Sanchez’s 78.3 rating was 23rd in the league last year. In passing yards, he was 15th in the league with 3,474. And 2011 was his best year yet. In 2010, he was 27th in passer rating (75.3) and 16th in passing yards (3,291). For his career, he has 55 TDs and 51 INTs. That’s pretty middle-of-the-pack numbers.
And top seven is pretty “elite” by NFL standards. If you started to list the top quarterbacks in the NFL, you get to seven pretty quickly – Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and…. Mark Sanchez? We haven’t gotten to Matt Stafford, Cam Newton, Philip Rivers, Michael Vick, etc.
So, yes, the Jets probably overpaid to keep Sanchez. The next question is do they have sufficient cap space to fill the other needs on their team in order to make a reasonable Super Bowl run, and make good on Rex Ryan’s annual promises. Time will tell.
