Jets' Signing of Quinn Raises Questions About Sanchez, Welcome to your daily New York Jets quarterback update.
Here's where everything stands after Monday: Geno Smith is likely to start Week 1 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Mark Sanchez is unlikely to play again for a good, long while. Greg McElroy and Graham Harrell are out. Brady Quinn and Matt Simms are in. And Joe Namath and Boomer Esiason are still regulars on New York's sports talk-radio circuit.
That just about covers it, and when it comes to the Jets and their quarterbacks, there is quite a lot to cover. With the team pulling off a flurry of transactions and with coach Rex Ryan still refusing to name Smith the starter for Sunday's opener—even though Sanchez's shoulder injury kept him from practicing—Monday was the most unusual day in the NFL's most unusual quarterback saga.
The signing of Quinn, a 28-year-old Notre Dame alumnus who has started 20 NFL games and was a first-round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2007, suggests that Sanchez's injury may keep him off the field longer than the Jets have hinted.
Playing in the fourth quarter of a preseason game against the Giants on Aug. 24—a game in which Smith threw three interceptions and seemed to squander an opportunity to win the team's quarterback competition—Sanchez sustained a bruise to his right shoulder joint.
The Jets, through a spokesman, and Sanchez have said that he is "day-to-day," a characterization that implies he might wake up one morning, decide his throwing arm feels limber and strong, and be ready to return to the lineup.
But if Sanchez's injury is more severe, it behooved the Jets to add a quarterback with some pro experience. Before the team's maneuvering Monday, the four quarterbacks on the roster—Smith, McElroy, Harrell and Simms—had appeared in two NFL games among them.
So the Jets waived McElroy, who had sprained his left knee and lost the No. 3 quarterback job to Simms anyway, from their injured-reserved (IR) list. They also released Harrell, who was signed last week and took the field for just one play in the Jets' preseason—a kneel-down at the end of last week's victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. (McElroy subsequently signed with the Cincinnati Bengals.)
Smith said that the Jets' coaches haven't told him yet whether he'll start on Sunday, but it is difficult to draw any other conclusion based on the circumstances.
After spending much of Monday's practice riding an exercise bike along the sideline, Sanchez volleyed questions about his status as if he were John McEnroe at the net, saying that he was "getting better every day" but providing no tangible details about his progress. If he sits out Wednesday's practice, too, the chances that he'd play against the Buccaneers would seem remote at best.
Ryan, for his part, said that the team isn't planning to put Sanchez on injured reserved any time soon. He didn't rule it out later in the season, though.
"If we felt as an organization that he should be placed on IR then Mark would have been placed on IR," he said. "Could things change? Absolutely things can change."
As for Quinn, who was cut by the Seattle Seahawks last week, he did practice on Monday, but as of the late afternoon he hadn't begun to dig into offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg's playbook. Though Smith is a rookie and Simms has never played in an NFL regular-season game, merely by going through training camp they are ahead of Quinn in learning Mornhinweg's system.
"I don't know all those answers right now," Quinn said. "I've got a lot on my plate. I just got here late [Sunday] night, and I'm still trying to get adjusted to everything."
