With the New York Jets on their bye week this week, Jets coach Rex Ryan has given the players time off to go home and take it easy before they come back to the facility and get ready for their Week 9 game in Buffalo.
Third-year quarterback Mark Sanchez is in New Jersey this week, but on Wednesday he took some time out of his schedule to hop on Fox Sports Radio to talk to Petros and Money for an annual radio appearance he’s done since his USC days.
In a 14-minute interview, which you can listen to in its entirety here, Sanchez talked with Petros Papadakis and Matt “Money” Smith about a variety of topics, including what it’s like to play under Ryan, how the Jets’ 2011 season is going, and how he deals with the New York media.
Sanchez was asked about Jets Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, and how Namath has been very vocal about some of things he thinks the Jets need to fix as the Jets have sputtered to a mediocre 4-3 start.
Thanks to SportsRadioInterviews.com, a transcript of Sanchez’s take on Namath’s criticism is available, among a few other questions Sanchez was asked during the interview.
The 24-year-old Sanchez has proven to be a class act on and off the field since his first day in Jets green and white, and rather than taking a few shots back at Namath, he took the high road and said all the right things:
[Namath] still cares a lot about the team. I know that. Some of that stuff may be taken out of context and the other stuff he just wants us to do well, so he is critical of anybody. If anybody is critical of our team it’s probably going to be me or Rex [Ryan]. That’s just kind of the roles we bought into, but it’s good when you are playing well and like I tell people all the time you beat the Patriots in the divisional game last year and you are wise beyond your years. Your footwork is the best. You are making the best reads in the world and you are going to be one of the best quarterbacks ever and then you lose a couple of games in a row and it’s like man this guy isn’t maturing at the right rate. He’s making bad decisions and his footwork sucks. That’s the way it goes and especially in New York. Joe Namath is the ultimate Jet and he’s probably the biggest icon this franchise has and winning that Super Bowl and guaranteeing it the way he did. We have a lot of respect for him and I know he wants the best out of our team. It’s no big deal.
If Sanchez had done the easy thing and dismissed Namath or blasted him right back, I really don’t think a lot of people would’ve had a problem with it. Many Jets fans I’ve talked to think Namath has been out of line.
But Mark Sanchez is a class act and has done everything a young quarterback should do in his first two and half years in the league, and it’s no surprise to see him handle this with grace and humility.
The Jets are in the right hands with Sanchez, who despite pedestrian regular season stats has been a postseason force in his first two years in the league, something he hopes to get a chance to do again this year.
Sanchez turns 25 years old in November, and is already a playoff veteran. If his career continues on the path he’s on with head coach Rex Ryan, he has a chance to retire as the best Jets quarterback ever.
Now that’s something for Joe Namath to debate.
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