As it stands now Mark Sanchez is the guy for the Denver Broncos.
The Broncos went from a Hall of Fame player in Peyton Manning, hopefully to capable backup Brock Osweiler to Sanchez all in a week’s time. Talk about taking one on the chin after a Super Bowl victory but this organization has been here before. After John Elway won the 2nd of his back-to-back titles he walked away and the Broncos were left to rebuild. They did but it took some dismal seasons and even worse signal callers until they found their perfect match in Manning.
The question is “what can Sanchez do”?.
The answer to that might not be what you think. Here is why.
Get the butt fumble jokes out the way and let’s focus on his body of work.
This is still the same Sanchez that led the New York Jets to two straight AFC Championships, granted that was about 6-7 years ago but injuries and backup duties have stripped him of another opportunity. He landed with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2014 and put up some respectful numbers while filling in for the injured Nick Foles in Chip Kelly’s offense. But the Eagles missed the playoffs, not due to the play of Sanchez but because the Eagles defense was as soft as a baby’s a**.
So you want to focus on his career win/loss record? No problem.
He’s floating around the .500 mark for his career, Manning or Elway he is not but he’s also not Jake Plummer, Tim Tebow, Brian Griese or Jay Cutler either. Sanchez has won before, he has played in big games and most importantly he is not afraid to take risk or make mistakes. It takes a certain amount of moxie to be able to play in a big market city and thrive. I don’t know what you may know about New York sports but I can tell you first hand this is not the city to upset fans in and neither is Philly. Sanchez will walk into Denver with no expectations and if the NFL is not careful he may walk out a champion.
Here is why I say that with a straight face.
How did the Broncos win the Super Bowl?
With a great defense. While they were stripped of a few pieces this offseason they still have a core that can lead them back to the playoffs. To be honest, when Manning was breaking records in Orange & Blue the team was making early exits, when the offense was forced to dumb it down, well we saw the end results in that. And this fits right into Sanchez hands. What more could he want?
It’s not possible for him to have any worse of a season than Manning had last year with 9 TDs and 17 INTs? He has a good ground game with C.J. Anderson and Ronnie Hillman and the receivers are both Pro Bowl players. The offense is an upgrade over what he had in Philly and what he managed to guide to those AFC title games with the Jets.
As for the defense…
Really? The Jets were good in ’09-’10 but this Broncos unit has been compared to the best EVER. They are coming off a championship and want nothing more than to prove that last season was no fluke, expect a more determined unit in ’16. If Sanchez can keep the turnovers down to a minimal, Von Miller and the defense will handle the heavy lifting which will put the team on the brink of another success story.
All is not lost for the Broncos as the AFC West is still wide open but thinking Sanchez can’t get the job done just proves that you were under a rock all last season.