The Jets completed the first act of their two-step dance on Sunday afternoon with a 28-7 massacre at the hands of the Seahawks.
Act two went down a few minutes later when Rex Ryan once again backed Mark Sanchez, who was 9-of-22 with two turnovers Sunday, as the team's starting quarterback. It's expected, given how often we've heard Ryan offer such thoughts this season, but that didn't make it feel any more appropriate.
"Again, I know this is a common theme, but if it was on one guy, it's easy to fix; it's much more," Ryan said after the game. "We’re sticking with Mark. We know he has to get better. And everybody around him has to get better."
Rex's statement tells us two things. The first is that his loyalty to Sanchez knows absolutely no bounds if he can watch the abomination that was the Jets offense on Sunday and then rush to support Sanchez.
You can appreciate Ryan's desire to protect and support his players while also saying that the guy in charge needs to be a bit more cold-blooded when there are games are on the line. Staying loyal to things that don't work is a good way to wind up unemployed.
The second is that the Jets coaches clearly don't believe Tim Tebow can play quarterback in the NFL, once more begging everyone to ask what Tebow is doing on the team if they don't think he can play quarterback. You don't trade a fourth-round pick for a player who comes with more baggage than any other player in the league for a handful of snaps and a few fake punts unless you simply don't care about the football side of the football business.
Unfortunately, that may be the truth about the current Jets hierarchy from Woody Johnson on down. Really, though, that's a conversation for another time because today is the day to talk about Sanchez.
U.S. & World
You've run out of reasons to conceivably believe Sanchez is about to get better. Blame it on the teammates, the line or whatever, but a quarterback confident in his abilities and operating at a high level doesn't just drop the ball when he sees Richard Sherman coming at him on a blitz.
And should you be holding onto faith that there's better play inside, you can't argue that it is time for Sanchez to be held a bit accountable for his play in his fourth season instead of hearing another excuse that attempts to absolve him of the blame. Sanchez has never been pushed or challenged since arriving in town and it's well past time to see what kind of response he has to that.
It's just hopeless to keep sending him out there and expecting much different than we got on Sunday. Trying something else, anything up to and including playing Greg McElroy else, is a must because Sanchez is just useless unless every other piece is perfectly in place for him and that's not the description of a guy who should be your quarterback.
It's time for Ryan to make a decision because we've seen enough ugliness for one season.
Speaking of, here's the rest of the good, bad an ugly from Sunday.
GOOD: Let's give the Jets defense their due for scoring the Jets' only points of the game and keeping them alive until the game got into the fourth quarter. Muhammad Wilkerson, Quinton Coples, Bart Scott and Ellis Lankster all made plays that made it possible to believe the Jets could stumble into a win on a day when the offense was a hideous mess.
BAD: In that fourth quarter, though, things went off the rails. They were tired and frustrated, to be sure, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable to get steamrolled by Marshawn Lynch or beated by wide receivers throwing passes.
UGLY: Jeremy Kerley has been one of the few offensive highlights this season, but his fumble on a punt in the second quarter makes it hard to remember any of the good things he's done this year. It led to an easy Seattle touchdown and forced the Jets further into the hole they were digging for themselves.
BAD: Would the game have played out differently if Dustin Keller didn't drop a pass on third down on the first possession of the second half instead of extending the drive with a catch? Probably not, but it would be interesting to see what might have happened.
UGLY: The Jets offensive line still gets talked about as if it was a good unit. That's increasingly done by people who don't actually watch Jets games.
UGLY: Just watch this Sanchez fumble a few more times and try to figure out what he thinks he's going to do on this play. If he were a rookie, you'd grin and bear it. In Year Four, it's time to do something else.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
