In Defense of Broncos QB Mark Sanchez

With the talk about the Denver Broncos quarterback situation, I give my take on why Mark Sanchez might be the best option for the Broncos in 2016.

Before I begin this seemingly impossible task, I need to establish a baseline of expectations. Quarterback is the most difficult position to play in sports. It’s like trying to do brain surgery in the middle of a 15 car pileup. This is reflected in the fact that if you don’t have one of the following 12 guys, your team will need to do something extraordinary to win the Super Bowl.

Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Carson Palmer, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Phillip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck

Drew Stafford, Jay Cutler, Alex Smith, Andy Dalton, and Joe Flacco are all different versions of the same underachieving quarterback, and Washington, the Vikings, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Raiders, Texans, Jaguars, and Titans get incomplete grades with young quarterbacks. History suggests half at best will join the aforementioned 12 quarterbacks good enough to carry just a good team to a championship.

The simple fact is that most NFL teams are unhappy with their current QB play. Mike Zimmer would undoubtedly tell you how encouraged he is by Teddy Bridgewater’s progress, but he’d personally drive him to Seattle if he could swap the former Louisville product for a guy like Russell Wilson.

The Broncos are one of those teams unenthused by their current options, but the infrastructure in place is solid, and there is a real opportunity for the new guy behind center to succeed.

Paxton Lynch is the future, but the odds are low that a rookie coming from a spread offense will be able to fully adapt to Kubiak’s west coast scheme that is trying to stave off the extinction of the fullback. Trevor Siemian is an unknown commodity, and Mark Sanchez is, well…very well known.

Due to some high profile blunders and his role as Tom Brady’s foil for a few years in Rexworld, Sanchez has become something of a caricature. He has demonstrated poor decision making in the face of pressure, and his high turnover rate lends some legitimacy to this part-fiction. However, he is not this laughably terrible quarterback many have made him out to be. Let’s play a game.

Player A: 61.8% completion, 7.15 yards per attempt, 1.66 TD-Int ratio

Player B: 64.1% completion, 7.83 yards per attempt, 1.27 TD-Int ratio

Player C: 66.2% completion, 7.92 yards per attempt, 2.6 TD-Int ratio

A is Brock Osweiler in 275 attempts last year, B is Mark Sanchez in 309 attempts on the 2014 Eagles, and C is Peyton Manning in 395 attempts in 2014. Based off of last year’s production, the Broncos upgraded at quarterback the moment Elway basically got Sanchez for free.

Peyton + Brock last year: 60.7% completion, 6.96 yards per attempt, 0.83 TD-Int ratio

Mark Sanchez in Philadelphia: 64.3% completion, 7.59 yard per attempt, 1.2 TD-Int ratio

Now many of you are probably saying “how convenient that his Jets stats are left out of those figures.” Which is a good point. Including his numbers in New York would have betrayed my argument that the Broncos upgraded.

I mainly presented his last two seasons in Philadelphia because most players are not the same guy they were four years ago. Now, systems are the main determinant of a quarterback’s numbers, and the Eagles were built around giving their QB as many high percentage throws as possible, while the Jets basically ran the exact opposite offense, and installed a west coast hybrid based off of a run game straight out of the 1980’s.

Early in his career, Mark Sanchez had the same struggles every young quarterback faces, but he has not demonstrated the consistent ability to overcome errors like this.

However, his half season stint in 2014 and his mop up duty last year did show the world a new Sanchez. He still turned the ball over too much, but the shaky decision making under pressure receded a bit. The Jets version had happy feet that lead to panic, but the guy on the Eagles looked much more composed and in control with guys in his face.

Sanchez has only seen significant action for one half of the last three seasons, and in 9 games for the 2014 Eagles, he compiled a 58.2 QBR, good for 17^th in the league (Jay Cutler and Alex Smith’s QBR were 54 and 49.4, respectively).

There is reason to believe that the former number six overall pick may have finally figured some of it out. This is not to say that any of us should feel comfortable if a shootout were to develop in the AFC championship between Sanchez and Brady, Big Ben, or Luck, but of the many bad quarterbacks in football, Mark Sanchez might be pretty good.

Drew Brees told Bill Simmons that being an NFL quarterback is 20% talent and 80% intangibles. Aaron Rodgers said the ratio was 25-75. The “intangibles” they speak of are things like the respect you command from your peers, your ability to control the room, and simply just being there for your teammates.

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Based off of what he has presented to us, Sanchez should be set on the “intangibles” aspect. First, every single USC quarterback in the Pete Carroll era had the “it” factor. Being a college kid and THE quarterback in Los Angeles is not something many are able to do, but Sanchez etched a real legacy in Trojan lore during Carroll’s last year in LA.

At the very least, Sanchez knows how to present himself – as he told the Washington Post in a pre-draft profile in 2009:

“It’s important to me to be prepared and to study the right way. Being a personality in the locker room, someone that other guys can talk to and look up to. A vocal leader, an emotional leader, and someone who knows when to lead by example. I think that really shows when you celebrate after plays and you’re with the guys all the time when you’re playing or practicing or just in social situations, it’s important to be a team guy.”

He certainly seems to back up this all-American image with his enthusiastic charity work, as he raises awareness for Type 1 diabetes for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, works with Sam’s Club to help combat childhood obesity, and he famously befriended Aiden Binkley, an 11-year-old with a rare form of cancer.

After Aiden died, Sanchez choked up talking about him on The Michael Kay Show on 1050 ESPN Radio, saying:

“He brought me so much inspiration. … It’s hard to talk about him. He meant the world to me. I felt like I’ve known him forever. … I saw his personality. I saw his competitive spirit. I saw him fighting every day. I’m complaining about a shoulder. Are you kidding me? … I think he was 11 years old, and he has cancer eating away at his body. This kid is fighting every day. He’s smiling every time I talk to him. I visited him at his home. I mean, he has to get carried up the stairs because he’s so weak and all he wants to talk about is LT [LaDainian Tomlinson] and Darrelle Revis and Rex Ryan and me…Oh, man, it kills you, just thinking about it. I love him to death.”

Mark Sanchez really does seem like a genuine human being, and that matters when you play a position that is the de facto captain of every team. Even though he struggled mightily in New York, Sanchez was respected by his teammates, and there were some moments where his talent jumped off the screen.

The Broncos offense is going to be built around the run game; there will be fullbacks and multiple tight ends out there to hit people more often than catch footballs. The quarterback is not going to be asked to do very much.

They will have to do well enough in the intermediate passing game to keep the linebackers guessing, and hit just enough shots down field so as to keep the safeties at bay. The former is something Sanchez has always struggled with, the latter – I actually think he could be pretty good bootlegging and bombing off the run game. Sanchez will never be accused of having a cannon, but the “wobbly touchdowns” we lived with the past four years are gone. This dude can spin the ball.

We’re not asking for a lot this season, just an improvement on last year’s nightmare at quarterback. Mark Sanchez is an upgrade, and don’t be shocked if he actually winds up being good. Kubiak’s offense is tailored to his (limited) skill set.