The New York Jets have tried their hardest to make it that Mark Sanchez is their starting quarterback, even while a number of their offseason moves seem to run counter to that notion.
The team gave Sanchez a three-year, $40.5-million contract extension after briefly dabbling in the Peyton Manning derby, and general manager Mike Tannenbaum emphatically backed Sanchez after he traded for former Denver Broncos starting quarterback Tim Tebow.
But no matter how many teams the Jets say Sanchez is their guy, Tebow's presence will create a climate ripe for speculation that Sanchez could be benched for Tebow at some point in 2012. And one former New York quarterback, Phil Simms, recently told the New York Post that Tebow can't be an effective piece as a part-time player.
“If you’re going to go in, then hell, go all in,” said Simms, who covered a number of Tebow's games last season while working for CBS. “How do you do this two ways? ‘We’re going to have a little package of plays.’ Then they should have never let Brad Smith go. I don't know. I don’t see how you get the effect of Tebow unless you’re all in.”
The Jets plan to use Tebow as a Wildcat quarterback, coming in for a few plays a game as a change of pace.
“He's still a quarterback,” Simms said. “He still needs the rhythm and the pacing of being in there and let it come to him and it happens. It’s not like 'I'm going in there. I have five plays. I'm going to make five unbelievable plays and they’re going to work.' That’s a dream world.”
Simms -- who told the Post that Tebow's presence as a backup can wear on a starting quarterback -- isn't the only Super Bowl MVP to weigh in on the Tebow-Sanchez dynamic. Joe Montana doesn't think there should be an issue over Sanchez' starting credentials.
“Mark is a better player right now and that’s it,” Montana wrote in an email to the New York Daily News. “As long as Mark believes in himself and plays, it’s not an issue. It’s more of an issue for those of you who write, or blog or tweet and all the other methods of delivering content.”