Excitement over rookie feels similar to 10 years ago
It didn’t take long for the kid to win everybody over. It happens fast, especially around here, when one of our football teams is looking for a hero.
You come out of the box with big passing numbers and you win. Then you get your first home game the next week and you win again. You’re Rookie of the Week, and then you do that again, and again. All of a sudden you’re 3-0 as a starter and everybody is talking about you and your team. It’s just the beginning. You’ve given your fans the most precious commodity there is in sports. You’ve given them hope, before their team is out of September. You’ve made them believe — rightly so — that there are even bigger things to come.
This isn’t Daniel Jones we’re talking about. This is Mark Sanchez, in the football September in Jersey 10 years ago.
Sanchez didn’t come out of the box with the numbers that Jones put up for the Giants last Sunday in Tampa, or under the same lights. But Sanchez threw for 272 yards and his first career touchdown pass against the Texans. Jets won. You know who Sanchez and the Jets beat the next week, in that first home start for him? The Patriots. It was only the first time the Jets had beaten the Patriots at home in nine years. Then the Jets beat the Titans. Just like that, Mark Sanchez, whom the Jets had taken with the fifth pick out of the NFL draft, was the first rookie quarterback in NFL history to win the first three games of a season.
Before long, Sanchez and the Jets would be ahead of the Colts in