4th and Inches.... By Rob Luckett

So go Jenkins, so go the Jets Season

      As a hobbled Kris Jenkins slowly paced towards the tunnel just before the end of the first half of Sunday’s Jets game against the Bill at the Meadowlands, fans had to fear the worst. Even with Jenkins giving the occasional thumbs up to on looking Jets fans the writing on the wall looked grim. We knew from day 1 that if the Jets were going to be even close to competing this year, their 3-4 D needed to be on the top of its game from the first to the last last snap of the season…And at the heart of any good 3-4 is an oversized mammoth playing nose. Jenkins was the Jets mammoth. Now he’s gone, waiting to go under the knife for what will be season ending knee surgery on his torn ACL. The Jets have officially crashed. As if Mark Sanchez’s five picks weren’t bad enough (more on that later), now the Jets must contemplate life after their most important player.

         Yes, Kris Jenkins is the Jets most important player. It shouldn’t even be in question…Anyone who knows this team and knows the game would agree with me. Nose Tackle isn’t and never will be a glamour position. A nose tackle will never fill up the stat sheet, but as a lot of fans know a good nose tackle is priceless. Just look at how much the best in the game Albert Haynesworth is getting paid down in Washington. Jenkins stuffed the run, he freed up the box so the jets pass rushing linebackers could wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks. The Jets defense losing Jenkins is like the equivalent of a dog getting castrated, neither will ever be the same again. Jenkins job is essentially to make everyone else’s on this defense easier, and he was (and hopefully next year when he returns next year) damn good at it.

While Jenkins replacement at NT Sione Pouha (Right) may have an “A+” plus name, his game is more in the “C” range. Not bad, but most defiantly not great. By no means is Pouha worthless, he’s just more suited to be the guy who “spells” Jenkins when he needs a rest, not simply “the guy.”The absence of Jenkins will have what looks to be an insurmountable negative trickledown effect on the Jets defense. Quarterbacks will have A LOT more time to throw, and although the Jets secondary is top notch it’s going to be tough to stay fresh when plays are extended like they most likely will be.

        The Jets defense is going to have to move on from this and learn from this, just like the offense is going to somehow move on and learn from the abysmal performance put forth by Mark Sanchez on Sunday.

There aren’t enough synonyms of “bad” to describe how Sanchez played on Sunday. Just so painful to watch, I’d rather have H1N1 then be forced to watch this Sunday’s game again. 5….YES 5 interceptions, and a laundry list of passes that were either over or under thrown and easily also could have been picked off.

Sanchez was left without his second and third wide receiver (Jericho Cothery, and David Clowney) due to injuries, but to complete passes to one wide out(Braylon Edwards) is simply unacceptable.

Right now the only thing in common between Sanchez and Broadway Joe is the Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde esque performance’s he has put forward thus far this season.

        Over the first three games of the season Sanchez has 4 touchdowns to go with only 2 interceptions. Not great, but a more then respectable ratio for a rookie quarterback. Now over the last three games he has 8 interceptions to go with only 1 touchdown…NOT GOOD, not by a long shot.

By no means am I ready to jump right off the Sanchez bandwagon.

Maybe it just needs to slow down a bit.

         The expectations put on Sanchez were lofty and quite frankly unfair. We’re all guilty of this, even me…After week 3 I was envisioning a rookie season for Sanchez that would be similar to the one Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco had last year. Serviceable numbers and a playoff berth. The thing about it is... What Ryan and Flacco did last year was an anomaly. Rarely does that happen for a rookie quarterback.

Several of the great QB’s going today struggled early on in their career. Look at the last three Super Bowl winning signal callers…Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and Ben Rothelisberger. All of them struggled to start their career, and it looks like all of them more then turned that around.

But with that said…

           For the first time this season I fear for Sanchez’s psyche. In the first five games whenever Sanchez turned the ball over he went to the sideline, regrouped and was ready to go the next time he was handed the ball. On Sunday though things looked a lot different…Sanchez look “shook” on the bench, and for the first time you had to wonder if Sanchez was going to get up to the answer the bell. Time and time again the Jets defense handed Sanchez an opportunity to redeem himself, and time and time again Sanchez proved to be an absolute failure. Sanchez’s performance in the past weeks has been so bad people are calling for Kellen Clemens to start. In my opinion, not a good idea…Leave Sanchez out there, let him take his licks. The guy needs to learn sometime, and he is not going to learn on the bench. And what exactly do we gain with Clemens? Clemens was never good, he honestly was never average, and he most certainly will never be great. Clemens was given his opportunity…Granted he never had the line or running game Sanchez has now, but he failed miserably. Sanchez needs his opportunity now, and the Jets need to give him the chance to work through these problems. The jets used a first round pick on him; you don’t just give up on a first round pick this quickly, especially when it’s a quarterback.

        The glass is now half empty. After the Saints game Jets fans could at least hold onto the fact that the defense looked great. After the Dolphins game Jets fans could at least hold onto the notion the offense, and more specifically Mark Sanchez’s passing game was improving. After the Bills game, tough as it may be to say…It really looks like there is nothing to hold onto. I’m not saying I want the Jets to take a dive, because I want them to be able to build on something for next year. I’m just saying now it’s starting to look more like the Jets will be building of a 7 or 8 win season instead of a playoff berth. Don’t worry though, because let’s not forget the Jets already won “our” Super Bowl in week 2.

This is Robert Luckett's 2nd Entry during his weekly spot of (4th and Inches by Rob Luckett)