Premium – Dan’s look at Sanchez, Part IV

Here is Part IV of Dan’s look at the play of Mark Sanchez in Miami, which included a myriad of check-down passes. Let’s get into it . . .

Down 16-10, the Jets got the ball back at 7:11 of the fourth quarter, and put together a pretty nice drive, but it ended in disaster. Here is Part IV of our look at Mark Sanchez in Miami.

This drive didn’t start out that well.

On first down, Sanchez attempted a pass on the short left side to Shonn Greene, and it was dropped. Both players deserve some blame on this play. The pass was a little behind Greene, but he still could have caught it.

But this begs the question – why were so many short passes inaccurate this season? That has to be fixed. We can understand down field passes not always being where they need to be, but short passes were too often a big challenge for the target, and that is inexcusable.

On the next play, Sanchez did a nice job of taking advantage of a major mistmatch on the short left side. Jeremy Kerley was being covered by Marvin Mitchell, and he left the outside linebacker in the dust, and this play gained 12 yards.

This was followed by a pass attempt to Greene on the short right side that was incomplete, but CB Vontae Davis was called for holding Santonio Holmes, and this was a five-yard penalty. By the way, Davis, a former first round pick and brother of TE Vernon, did a wonderful job covering Holmes throughout the afternoon.

A few plays later, on third and five, Sanchez threw an out to Plaxico Burress for a gain of seven on the right side.

But a few plays later, it looked like this drive was dead in the water. After a gain of one by Greene on first down, Sanchez threw a pair of incompletions to Kerley. On the first one, the field reared it’s ugly head again. As Kerley attempted a cut to the right side on a short route, he slipped and this messed up the timing of this route. On third down, Sanchez threw incomplete down field to Kerley, but S Yeremiah Bell was called for roughing the passer.

If not for this borderline penalty, the drive would likely had been over, though, the Jets were on the Dolphins’ 45, so Rex might have gone for it on fourth down.

The next play, a reverse to Kerley, to the left side, gained 16 yards.

The next two plays were dumps to LT, one incomplete, one for four yards.

Then Sanchez attempted to dump to a running back for the third play in a row, Greene over the middle, and it was picked off by Mitchell, who took it 55 yards.

This pass was the sixth short throw to a running back on this drive alone, so is anybody surprised this pick happened?

I’m sorry, you can’t have a QB who accounts for $17 million on the cap this past season, and have him be so enamored of check-downs.  The Jets can have a QB making the league minimum to handle that.

We we will have the final section on Sanchez – Part V, on Thursday at 3 pm.