Mark Sanchez has a chance to reignite his NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles, and he has taken advantage of it thus far. Sanchez threw for 332 yards and two touchdowns in a blowout win over the Carolina Panthers on Monday night. Apparently he can thank his trainer for that.
According to Jenny Vrentas of TheMMQB.com, Sanchez’s trainer Todd Norman staged an intervention with the former USC star at a lunch meeting back in January. Norman brought with him another unidentified pro athlete for support.
“It is one thing for me to say certain things to Mark as his trainer and his friend, but I wanted him to hear from someone else,” Norman explained. “A pro athlete who has been in the game for a long time, made a lot of money and had a lot of success. Not even a football player. Just someone outside of his immediate world. Someone Mark has respect for.”
Vrentas notes that Norman and the other athlete “interrogated” Sanchez, noting that he was out of shape and weak. Sanchez was still with the New York Jets at the time, but it was a well-known fact that he was about to be released.
“I told him, ‘Look, you might get one more opportunity,’” Norman said. “This was a defining offseason for him. This was a situation where you either break through or go downhill from here. And I tell you what, I’ve seen him go through so much stuff in his career, I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to quit football.”
Sanchez hasn’t exactly broken through yet, but he has shown that he is not ready to call it a career. He has thrown the deep ball well since taking over for an injured Nick Foles and seems extremely comfortable in Chip Kelly’s offense. If nothing else, Sanchez has shown that he put in plenty of work during the offseason.
And now for the best part — Norman even convinced Sanchez to clean up his physical appearance.
“He’s going to kill me for saying this, but when we had that first meeting, I told him he needed to shave his beard and cut his hair,” Norman said. “I said, ‘Hey, you need to look like a professional, and right now you don’t look like a starting quarterback in the NFL.’ Mark is a good-looking guy, and he just didn’t look like he was keeping himself together. To me, that was part of his rebirth. Making a complete change, even in his appearance.”
Remember those cornrows Sanchez had last year? Yeah, that wasn’t a good look.
Time will tell if Sanchez can lead the Eagles to the playoffs. While I don’t think he’s among the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks, I also don’t believe Sanchez is as bad as he showed during his last few seasons in New York. Drew Bledsoe is right about playing quarterback for the Jets.
