While everyone is blaming the Jets woes on quarterback Mark Sanchez, his teammate Antonio Cromartie feels differently. Read more after the jump.
“We have confidence in Mark,” Cromartie said Friday after the AFC team’s morning walk-through. “Like I’ve always said, even with the whole (Tim) Tebow thing, if we’re going to sign Mark to a three-year extension, we need to make sure we put guys around him.
“If he has good, veteran players around him — ones that know how to practice and compete at a high level every day — then you’ll have a better quarterback. But when you don’t have a supporting cast around him, you’re going to get an average or below-average quarterback. That’s what we got.”
“He needs a better supporting cast,” Cromartie said about Sanchez. “That’s something the new GM has to look at and evaluate as he’s looking at the roster. He needs to get Mark some help.”
Clearly Cromartie felt former general manager Mike Tannenbaum didn’t do his job and, in general, Jets owner Woody Johnson agreed, firing Tannebaum on Jan. 2, then hiring John Idzik away from the Seattle Seahawks to fill the vacant GM post and start cleaning up the mess.
That mess is a gigantic one as the Jets cap situation is quite the headache. And Sanchez’s contract complicates matters even further. If the Jets keep him, he will count $12.8 million against a cap that is already bulging. And if the Jets cut Sanchez, he’ll still count even more toward the cap — $17.2 million.
It’s a mess Idzik has inherited and it’s his job to figure out. Even Cromartie turned down an offer to help solve that one.
“That’s above my pay grade,” he said.
