Why Won't the Jets Bench Mark Sanchez, Start Tim Tebow?

“Mark Sanchez is our quarterback.”

Head coach Rex Ryan spoke those words once again Sunday after the Jets suffered yet another humbling loss at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks yesterday 28-7. Why? Only Ryan seems to know.          

The only reason the Jets were not shut out Sunday was because the Jets defense scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery in the 1st quarter. In fact, the Jets offense put up 0 points and has now only scored only 9 total points in the last 8 quarters.        

Now, I know that there is more to the Jets struggles than Mark Sanchez, but yesterday Sanchez was a miserable 9 for 22 with a fumble, interception in the end zone, and once again, 0 points. Sanchez has now completed less than 50% of his passes in 5 of the Jets 9 games (4 of those games being losses coincidently). Not only that, but after his two turnovers yesterday, Sanchez now has 17 in 9 games.          

So what am I missing? What exactly is Sanchez doing that Tim Tebow couldn’t do? Lets break it down:

Sanchez is turning the ball over at a sickening rate-

-While Tebow’s struggles throwing the ball were well-documented last year, he was relatively conservative when it came to turning the ball over. If you take away one game against Buffalo, Tebow only had 8 turnovers in 11 games.

Sanchez is struggling in the red zone-

-Sanchez owns a passer rating of 52 in the red zone this year and has thrown 4 interceptions inside the 20. Last year, in the red zone, Tebow had a 65.4 passer rating with only 2 interceptions (in 12 games compared to Sanchez’z 9) AND Tebow was able to use his legs to score 6 rushing touchdowns in the red zone, while Sanchez has 0.

The Jets haven’t been able to create a consistent run game-

-Obviously this is somewhat out of Sanchez’s control, but the past shows us it wouldn’t necessarily be out of Tebow’s.  Last year, after taking over for Kyle Orton, Tebow turned the Broncos into the #1 rushing attack in the league. As it stands right now, even when the Jets’ opponents KNOW Tebow is coming in to run, he is still averaging 3.5 yards a carry. Rex Ryan wants to establish a consistent running game. That is something everyone knows Tebow can do.

The Jets haven’t been able to keep their defense off the field-

-The Jets are already at the bottom of the league as far as 3 and outs go. So Tebow can’t really hurt them in this area. At least if Tebow is in, and the Jets are most likely running the ball more and they might be able to eat up some more clock and give their defense a little more time on the sideline each game.

The list goes on and on. You would be hard pressed to find an encouraging statistic regarding Mark Sanchez or the Jets offense at this point. That’s what makes Ryan’s hesitancy to make a switch so confusing. What exactly does he think he would be risking? The offense literally cannot get any worse than it has been the last two weeks.          

Funny story, next week is “Faith and Family” day when the Jets take on the Rams in St Louis. Hopefully, for the Jets sake, Rex Ryan knows that and doesn’t see it as a coincidence.