Sanchez’s terrible projection is independent of the quality of the offensive line. (It goes up a bit after bringing the line into the equation.) Basically, no quarterback with as few college starts as Sanchez has ever done anything but be terrible, and particularly out of the gate. He has so many fewer starts than your average quarterback prospect that it’s almost difficult to compare him to anyone, but all the nearest guys- Alex Smith, Akili Smith, Michael Vick, Ryan Leaf, Jim Druckenmiller-were awful out of the gate (and generally awful thereafter). The exception is Aaron Rodgers, who sat for multiple seasons before stepping into the lineup.

Anyway, I don’t mean to suggest certainty in any of this. It’s entirely possible that the Jets can run the ball as well as Baltimore did last year (not great, but good enough), and that Sanchez can play within himself and do alright in an offense that asks him to do a very limited number of things. It’s also possible-probable, I think-that the defense will be better than we are projecting, provided they don’t have any injuries along the defensive line. Projections are really not there to be taken at face value, but rather to look at the trends and get a feel for the probabilities. There are a lot of factors that the Jets will have to overcome if they are going to even match last year’s performance. They will have to get an unusually good performance out of a rookie (or inexperienced) quarterback. Their receiving experience isn’t quite in the danger zone, but it’s pretty close, so they are going to have to get an unusually good performance out of their receivers. They are going to need to sustain their play in the red zone, despite the fact that teams that are better in the red zone than elsewhere tend to regress the following year. Their defense is going to have to improve more than defenses generally do when a new defensive coach comes in. It’s possible that they can overcome those obstacles, but when I read comments about the upcoming season, I generally don’t see much awareness that any of these obstacles are even there, or at the very least, people don’t seem to be taking them all that seriously. To the extent that I strike a tone of certainty, it’s to try to shift the ground of the discussion a little bit.

Fair enough, but Burke was also talking about QB performance and FO’s whole thesis is that Sanchez’s performance will result in the Jets having the worst offense in the NFL. That conclusion, along with the defense regressing from last year despite a talent infusion, make no sense. I guess we’ll see.

It’s important to step back and look at what we’re actually debating. I’m not saying the Jets offense is going to be top 10 or that either Clemens or Sanchez is going to be a good QB. I’m saying the offense has a reasonable chance to be slightly below average and is unlikely to be among the absolute worst. You are saying that there’s almost no chance the Jets offense could even be mediocre. That’s a lot of certainty based on very imperfect statistical analysis.

I’ve always been a fan of Pennington, actually. I thought the team should look into alternatives, particularly when it looked like his career might be in jeopardy, but being prudent and summarily replacing a player are two different things. I spent all of 2007 pointing out that none of what was going on was Chad’s fault and that it was silly to replace him with Clemens, and I spent much of the offseason arguing that Pennington was not finished and that he would return to being an effective quarterback with the proper support. I was not surprised that he outplayed Favre last year, and frankly, unless he gets hurt, he’s going to outplay whoever we start at quarterback this year. But what’s done is done.

Anyway, to answer your question, yes there are instances of good offensive lines not doing anything to prevent an offense from being among the worst in the league. If you have the 32nd ranked passing attack, there isn’t much that running the football is going to do for you.

The Jets have very little shot at duplicating last year’s offense for several reasons. The first is that Favre, while not good, was likely much better than either Clemens or Sanchez will be. The offense is unlikely to stay as healthy as last year. The offense is unlikely to perform at such a high level in the red zone again, which will result in a fairly major drop-off in points produced.

You seem to be misreading Burke’s article. Burke is saying that quarterbacks who start as rookies tend to develop into better players than quarterbacks who don’t start as rookies (or at the very least, don’t have their development stunted by the experience). He’s not saying anything about how starting a rookie quarterback affects the team he’s starting for.

Also, the Jets OL improvement from 2007 to 2008 was based upon obtaining Faneca and Woody AND Callahan. Apparently, FO does not factor in the quality of OL coach. I would argue that the perceived lack of OL depth is speculative because we just don’t know how well Callahan has coached them up. Notice Sanchez’s praise of Robert Turner’s play in yesterday’s scrimmage. In Denver, for instance, the names changed (including QB and RB), but as long as Rick Dennison has been the OL coach, Denver’s OL has been a team strength. IMO, Callahan is that good.

It also seems to me that your predictions about the Jets offense ignore the effect of a good offensive line, which is surprising giving the general emphasis on line play at FO. Is there any precedent of a team with a top 10 (or even above average) OL being the worst offense in the league? You’ve said that the Jets will experience more injuries on the OL this year, which may be more likely than not but is far from a certainty (see, e.g., the Dallas extended health streak), but I’ve seen you make no argument that losing starters for a few games here and there will turn a good OL into a terrible one.

The Jets have a very good OL, good RBs, a good receiving TE, a good not great WR, an at least OK slot receiver (see Stuckey’s DVOA and catch rate last year), and unproven to mediocre talent at QB and other WR spots. I don’t see how that translates into the worst offense in the league. Realistic downside is Buffalo’s offense last year — bad but not truly terrible. And that was with an OL that couldn’t pass block, the lowest DVOA QB in the league making a quarter of their pass attempts (Edwards was mediocre the rest of the time), and a terrible TE. They managed to be better than 8 other teams with decent run blocking and one very good receiver. The Jets appear to have more talent than that this year. Realistic upside for the Jets offense this year is probably the Jets offense last year.

It IS a myth that a rookie QBs lessen a team’s chances of winning. In the NYT’s Fifth Down Blog, Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats set forth the statistical proof showing the myth:

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/statistics-show-theres-no-harm-in-starting-a-rookie-quarterback/

Now, Football Outsiders may be a competitor, but respond to the stats, instead of making conclusory assertions.