Poor decision maker who got away with a lot of mistakes last season because of the teams he was playing against. The Houston game is a perfect example. The Texans should have destroyed the Jets because Sanchez was gifting passes to them, but a Houston team that has a tendency to take the gaspipe did exactly that.
I'm only going to argue this point because Rex Ryan's Gut argued the rest.
Yes, he was gifting passes in that game. He was a poor decision maker but those poor decisions came in bunches just like his interceptions came in bunches. 5 vs Buffalo (1st game), 3 vs Atlanta, 4 vs New England (2nd game), 3 vs the Saints, 2 vs Jacksonville. Those were 5 of the 7 losses...the other two were to Miami.
5+3+4+3+2=17! 17 of his 20 INT's came in 5 games! (Yikes)
So yes while Sanchez was indeed gifting passes, it was not an 'all-season-long-every-game' thing. The problem is he would play well then regress...3 good games then a REAL stinker.
He also had games where the balls he threw were missing receivers, and missing badly too. They weren't always WIDE open, but they were open enough that he should have gotten the football in there.
This is what I see as an everyday Jets fan. I see the nuances of Sanchez's game that the Pats fans who don't watch all Jets games don't see.
Some pats fans might say Sanchez's play in the playoffs were nothing to get excited about. But they don't see the throws in tight coverage; the preciseness of the passes; the defense-freezing pump fakes, the check downs he makes, the mental clock in his head when he has to give up the football. All of that stuff wasn't there before. That's why I get excited: because of how quickly over the season he has ingrained them into his skill set.
Cynic's might say, "Any NFL caliber QB should already have those skills." And they would be right. But not every rookie comes in with all those skills (certainly Sanchez didn't).
Case in point: In the Saints game (game 3), Sanchez was stripped of the football in his own end zone and the Saints scored a touchdown. He never had a mental clock for when he should get rid of the football. USC probably never let anyone get that close to him (I only assume so, I never watch any college games).
However in the AFC Champ Game: (game 19), he was able to get the ball out of his hands to Dustin Keller for a TD before getting drilled.
I happen to also believe that, on an unconscious level, all Patriot fans compare every! single! QB! to Tom Brady. Since Mark Sanchez didn't play as good as Tom Brady (usually does) he was 'meh'.
