It has been more than three months since the Jets acquired Tim Tebow from the Broncos, and the critics have for the most part quieted down. Once training camp begins, all eyes will be on New York with people wondering what role Tebow will have in the Jets offense and whether or not the quarterback situation will become a distraction for the rest of the team. But for now, we simply have to settle for people like Jim Kelly talking about what a mistake the Jets made.
“I gotta be honest: I don’t know what (the Jets) really were thinking,” Kelly told NFL Network’s “Total Access” on Thursday according to Around the League. “Mark Sanchez is a quarterback who’s going to be sitting there every single game if he plays bad, and No. 1, you know Jets fans — they’re going to start booing.
“I think (there’s) a lot of pressure on Sanchez to not only start off hot — but continue game after game after game playing steady. If he doesn’t, you know you’re going to hear the boo birds. People want Tim Tebow in there. I like them both. I thought Sanchez was a very good quarterback coming on. If I was a general manager or president or owner of the team, I wouldn’t have done that (trade) unless I got rid of Sanchez. But I think he’s a good enough quarterback to be there.”
Kelly is not the first former quarterback to question the move, but people are forgetting that this is probably what the Jets wanted. Sanchez has improved slightly in each of his three years as the full-time starter, but his quarterback rating was only 78.2 last season in a year where quarterbacks were lighting up the scoreboard. Tebow is not only a marketing machine, he also puts pressure on Sanchez to perform. If Sanchez can’t handle that pressure, he’s probably not fit to be playing in New York anyway.
