Rex Rolls Dice Comes Up Snake Eyes on Both Sanchez & Smith

Forget about the final score. Who cares that the Jets defeated the Giants 24-21 in their annual preseason clash, because this game will be best remembered more for coaching bloopers than anything else.

While Giants coach Tom Coughlin made some critical mistakes, like playing for tie that forced overtime, and extending the game and chance for injury longer, it is Rex Ryan who took the cake.

As everyone knows, Ryan decided to insert Mark Sanchez into the fourth quarter of the meaningless contest with 11 minutes to go, and the embattled QB was injured, left the game, and is now day-to-day with an undiagnosed shoulder injury.

Now everyone wants Ryan fired. The same Jets fans who wanted Mark Sanchez TKO'd now want him back after they witnessed how green in the gills Geno Smith is. Smith was awful; worse, he was Sanchez-like, as he threw three interceptions and stepped out of bounds in the back of the end zone for a safety.

To many Smith's horrific performance meant that Sanchez won the starting job by default. But, you can't blame Ryan for putting the buttfumbler into the game in the fourth quarter, because Sanchez had done nothing to win the job to begin with. Sanchez had a mediocre camp and an woeful preseason. If Sanchez played like a real veteran quarterback he would have blown Smith away the first week of training camp, but that never happened.

The fact that Ryan even put Sanchez into the game with a second team offensive line, down 15-14 to the Giants speaks volumes about how much the competition between Ryan and John Idzik matters as much as the competition between Sanchez and Smith.

For two consecutive weeks, Ryan has puffed up his feathers and made a direct statement to the front office that Sanchez is his guy through and through.

That is why he let Sanchez play three quarters against Jacksonville, instead of inserting Matt Simms in the third quarter, and creating the mystery injury to Greg McElory. He wanted Sanchez to rip up one of the worst teams in football in the Jaguars, and instead Sanchez was pedestrian against the Northern Florida Pussy-cats.

He threw an end zone interception and botched a four goal line plays at the end of the first half. The only reason the Jets won 37-13 over the Jags, was ... well, because it was the Jaguars.

So to Ryan after watching Geno Smith stink it up against Big Blue, and knowing that he could send another direct message to Idzik, he threw in Sanchez late in the game, hoping that Sanchez would turn into John Elway and lead a game winning touchdown drive against the Giants to show the world Sanchez is indeed his boy.

Now his boy is hurt.

Now Ryan might be stuck with Smith whether he likes it or not.

One can even argue that Ryan was feeling the pressure from the front office to have this QB competition; in return, he felt the need to put in Sanchez in order to give him one last shot to show he deserves to be the guy because through two preseason games he didn't prove anything.

Again echoing the thesis that Ryan wanted Sanchez to win the job outright.

Some are still saying that Ryan jeopardized Sanchez's career, but let's be honest, Sanchez's career in New York and in the NFL was close to over anyway. He was on pace to be a career back-up, who may toil in the Arena Football League before too long. 

It's not like Sanchez is Tom Brady. 

It's not like Sanchez is Peyton Manning here either. 

Heck, he's not even Russell Wilson.

What was even more bizarre was Ryan's press conference. He sounded like a man desperate with full knowledge that his time is coming to a quick and abrupt close. He knows that the "dream job" that he talked about for the past four years is about to be someone else's job very soon.

He knows that he cost himself probably the best chance to win some games early in the year by losing his boy wonder, Mr. Sanchez.

Now he's stuck with Smith, unless Sanchez heals up quick enough to start against the Buccaneers so he can throw interceptions to Darrelle Revis instead of Smith. (Did I say that?)

Ironically the Jets best option might be Matt Simms, Jets fans new favorite back-up quarterback. Simms did some good things on Saturday. He also overthrew a lot of wide open receivers, too. He has a much better arm than McElory, but until we see real NFL bullets flying his way it's hard to evaluate Simms. If anything he's taken McElory's job as the number three quarterback.

Do the Jets have a Tom Brady or Colin Kaepernick in waiting in Simms, as most Jets fans are now thinking? Ummm, who knows? Probably not, you don't want to count your chickens too soon as they say. But with the way things look here in 2013 where we know Sanchez isn't THE guy. And It looks like Smith isn't THE guy either, no one would be shocked if either Simms or McElory make a couple of starts this year for Gang Green.

But one thing is for certain, nobody would be surprised if some crisp October afternoon we hear that Rex Ryan has been fired.