That this headline was even necessary is truly disappointing. Gary Myers is trolling Jets fans with a Peyton Manning-to-the-Jets argument, like bloggers masquerading as NFL scouts do in the offseason, and we’re taking the bait.

Peyton Manning to the Jets is an awful idea, and no convoluted logic can convince otherwise. It’s an asinine suggestion bred from the same womb of insanity where Manning as a 2011 MVP candidate flourished. It’s lazy, irresponsible, and unrealistic. We detest this opinion.

The bottom line is that, even if the Jets find a miracle on Sunday and back their way into the playoffs, they are not winning the Super Bowl this season as Ryan has so often guaranteed.

They need to shake things up offensively, and bringing in Manning for a season or two would do much more toward getting them to a Super Bowl than firing offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer would.

Here is where Jets fans are supposed to believe that Peyton Manning, a renowned postseason choke artist, holds the other half to Rex Ryan’s Super Bowl heart pendant. (More on Schottenheimer later.)

Myers would have readers believe that Manning, he of multiple NFL accolades and prolific regular-season passing performances, can easily achieve at 36 what he’s only accomplished once in his storied career. Just so we’re clear, we’re talking about Super Bowl wins.

The absolutely hilarious thing here is that Manning was dreadful en route to his only Super Bowl title. From the Wild Card round and into Super Bowl 41, Manning threw three touchdowns and seven picks while Adam Vinatieri and the Colts defense kept Indy afloat. Also, Rex Grossman happened.

Regardless, Manning’s only championship-winning year saw a 101.0 regular-season passer rating drop to 70.5 in January.

The Colts were not a Lombardi-collecting dynasty with a younger and healthier Manning in his prime. He won’t help the Jets now.

Oh, just for fun: As a rookie in 2009, Sanchez’s 63.9 regular-season passer rating soared to 92.7 in the playoffs; it jumped from 75.3 to 95.5 in 2010, as well.

*****

Before we continue, let’s step back into Myers’ column a bit and briefly batter this blip of a remark:

Eli’s big brother could also help the Jets in their obsession with not being the Giants’ little brother.

But on Sept. 7, Myers wrote in an article titled “Rex Ryan’s Jets are now the big brother of New York NFL football, overtaking Tom Coughlin’s Giants” (HOLY SEO!):

The Giants and Jets play at MetLife Stadium on Dec. 24. The real bragging rights argument won’t truly be settled unless the Jets and Giants meet in a Super Bowl.

Until then, it’s the Jets’ town, and they are the team to beat. And as Ryan said in his book: “Whether you like it or not, those are the facts.”

It’s that kind of flip-flopping in New York’s sports media that frustrates readers to no end.

For the sake of Myers’ September article, last weekend’s Jets-Giants game was inconsequential in determining true bragging rights — because it’s no Super Bowl. But in his argument for Peyton Manning, he invokes the tired “big brother vs. little brother” point of contention after trying to dismantle it three months ago.

We see what you’re doing there, Myers. Classic trolling.

*****

ONWARD!

Teaming Luck with Manning is an option for the Colts, but it would be uncomfortable for both of them – Archie Manning said so a couple of weeks ago. “I don’t think it’d necessarily be great for either one,” the elder Manning said.

First-round quarterbacks no longer sit on the bench for a couple of years. There’s a much better chance that the Colts get rid of Manning than pass on Luck.

Well, if Archie Manning said so…

According to Jason La Canfora, Colts owner Jim Irsay would like to have Manning and his heir on the roster, should business and health allow it. But never you mind that, Myers.

The Colts would be better served acquiring a veteran like Donovan McNabb to compete with Andrew Luck next summer. No need to keep Manning around as a veteran presence with that kind of tutelage in the open market.

Manning signed a new contract right after the lockout. The Colts must decide by March 9 — four days before the start of the 2012 league year — whether to pick up his $28 million option bonus, which is payable in $14 million installments on March 15 of 2013 and 2014. His base salary for 2012 is $7.4 million, meaning the Colts would owe him $35.4 million next year after paying him $26.4 million in 2011 while he sat on the sideline.

In an interview with Rich Eisen on Dec. 22, Irsay wasn’t troubled by the money matters, saying, “I don’t see that being an issue. I paid him $26 million this season and he didn’t play and I knew it was an iffy situation. If he’s healthy and he can play, he’ll be back here.”

Owner-speak is rarely law, and should never be interpreted as such, but the operative phrasing in Irsay’s comment is “if he’s healthy.”

We’re more inclined to run with that brand of honesty before Archie’s assessment. Otherwise, we’d all be calling for Joe Namath to be the next head coach.

Sarcasm aside and pure football at the forefront, the Jets would be unwise to stagger Sanchez’s growth for a questionable Manning. It really is that simple.

If Manning suffers a setback or is reinjured, the Jets could give the job back to Sanchez, who would provide valuable insurance.

Sanchez’s ego would take a major hit, but he was handed one of the premier jobs in the NFL after just 16 college starts and hasn’t earned the right for this to be a lifetime appointment.

Sanchez is due $8.5 million in 2012 in the fourth year of his five-year deal. I can’t see any team investing huge dollars in Manning because of concerns about his neck. There’s enough flexibility in the way teams structure contracts that the Jets could find a way to fit Manning and Sanchez under the salary cap.

Don’t you see why this is so crazy, now? You have to. That’s cake and eating it, too.

The Jets don’t need to squeeze two quarterback contracts under the cap next offseason. They need to monitor the right-tackle market, because Wayne Hunter could give up the sack that ends Sanchez’s career and Vlad Ducasse looks like an unfortunate whiff.

What impact could an immobile Peyton Manning have when Hunter gets bull rushed out of his cleats?

And then Tannenbaum needs to make a decision on Jim Leonhard and upgrade Eric Smith’s spot with a full-time playmaker. And if there’s time and money, the Jets need to look for linebacker help, inside and out.

Sanchez is still struggling with his accuracy, and is very likely rushing his reads to avoid being crushed when Hunter does his best speed-bump impression. But do not neglect the ineffectiveness of the Jets’ screen passes, Shonn Greene’s drops, or Santonio Holmes’s inconsistency for the sake of this absurd Manning idea.

And even before player personnel is even addressed, Tannenbaum needs to be absolutely honest about Schottenheimer — and move forward without him. Because if anyone knows how to plug a quarterback into a broken system, it’s him.

Adam Schein dissected Schottenheimer’s deficiencies on Dec. 28, and it’s hard to argue with him. (Truth be told, we’re not interested in debating Schein on the point, either.)

“It is inexcusable to throw the ball 60 times with Mark Sanchez,” Schein writes. Unless you’re in a shootout, it’s inexcusable to ever throw the ball that many times.

But remember this: in the summer of 2008, when Ryan was still in Baltimore, the Jets vehemently denied any interest in acquiring Brett Favre — until they were introducing him as their starting QB.

Also, remember this: in the winter of 2008, the Jets collapsed under Favre’s watch, missed the playoffs, and sent Gang Green into a new coaching regime. Not a strong way to cap the argument, Mr. Myers.

Like Favre was to Kellen Clemens, acquiring Manning would be an indictment on Sanchez and his future with the team. There is no coming back from that.

Acquiring Manning would be a step in the wrong direction with a quarterback who has struggled to beat the Jets’ nemesis in New England. It would handcuff the Jets from securing more talent around him. And, again, like Favre, it will mean nothing with Schottenheimer’s playbook.

We’re not rushing Manning’s retirement or saying he’s finished. He’ll likely be the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year after 2012, but it doesn’t need to happen in New York.

Sanchez needs to improve, but situations around him need to be addressed before justifying a quarterback change. He should be experienced enough now to absorb a new offensive system, should the Jets finally move on from Schotty this offseason; and Mike & Rex should know they can’t stand pat with stop-gap players when upgrades are necessary.

I’m not sure whether it’s the loss of Braylon Edwards as a deep threat (though Holmes was instrumental in a lot of those 2010 drives), Schottenheimer’s playcalling, or Sanchez’s loss of confidence, but when these Jets are behind late in a game, they tend to stay that way.

The drive against Denver was painful to watch. It’s as though the Jets had no idea what to do with little time to spare. After completing a pass to Keller, who wisely ran out of bounds, Sanchez was unable to find an open receiver, getting knocked down, forcing the Jets to waste a timeout on a loss of yards. On the next play, the Jets were able to convert on 4th and 19, albeit over the middle to Patrick Turner, spending yet another time out. Joe McKnight made a reception that looked helpful on the following play, but was unable to get out of bounds, leaving the Jets with one shot at the end zone after Sanchez spiked it with seven seconds to go.

This team has only won two games this year in which they were trailing heading into the 4th quarter–against the Lions and against the Chargers. And in both of those games, the points the Jets needed to win came off of interceptions leading to excellent field position or from special teams play (e.g. Joe McKnight’s blocked punt and Isaiah Trufant’s touchdown recovery).

If the Jets are going to succeed in the coming months, this phase of the game must improve very very quickly.

Even with that drive, the Jets defense only gave up 229 total yards and 11 first down, limiting the Broncos to 3/13 on 3rd down conversions. Which is why the play that I’m about to talk about, the one that to me was the hardest to watch, is so darned galling.

First of all, I’m not talking about Eric Smith’s poor decision on Tim Tebow’s touchdown run. Had he tackled Tebow (which one could argue was beyond his ability), the Broncos still would’ve scored a field goal, most likely setting up overtime.

If you recall, on the first play of Denver’s final drive, Tebow flipped a screen pass to Eddie Royal that he ran out of the end zone to the Broncos’ 13-yard line, gaining eight yards. Immediately after Royal caught the ball, Jim Leonhard threw himself at his feet, narrowly missing tackling him in the end zone. Granted, Leonhard on Royal was a matchup nightmare, but had he made that tackle, the Jets would have had a safety, the ball back and would very likely have won the game.

Which made seeing that replay after the game all the more impossible to watch.

I’m not even going to talk about the offense.

What about you? What one play kept you up at night as you replayed it over and over in your mind, wishing you could will an alternate outcome into being?

All I can say is this: don’t panic.

This isn’t the first time we’ve been in this situation. Remember in 2009, in late December, when Rex Ryan was convinced the Jets were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, and then they went out and beat the Colts and the Bengals in the last two weeks of the season?

Or remember last year, later in the season than we are now, when the Patriots whupped us 45-3 but we still managed to knock them out of the playoffs before facing Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game?

In fact, I’m pretty sure the Jets didn’t even win to make it in last year. I recall watching the Jets fail to top the Bears in Week 16, then flipping over to the Jaguars-Redskins game to watch Washington win on a field goal, sending the Jets to the postseason.

It’s never fun watching your team lose, but let’s not count the Jets out until they’re actually out. And let’s be honest about who Rex Ryan’s Jets are. This is not a team that rips through the NFL, sending opposing teams running scared. This is a team that sneaks into the playoffs, then makes a whole lot of noise once they’re there. And right now, this is a team that has 10 days to regroup before playing games against 6 teams whom it is well within their ability to defeat.

The Evidence

Maybe he used the Jedi mind trick to baffle the Ravens’ kicking team. Or maybe the force told him exactly when to hit the right holes the way it helped Luke destroy the Death Star. Whatever the case, we’re dealing with a football player more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

What’s your preference? Try not to let this video sway you.

At the time Bretherton wrote the article, the Jets were a measly 3-3, but Mark Sanchez had thrown for 1,372 yards, with 9 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Bretherton calculated that he was on pace for the following stat line at the end of the season:

3,663 yards, 24 TDs, 13 INTs, 56.1 completion percentage (296 comp., 528 attempts)

Which would have put him somewhere around the bottom of the Top 10 at the end of last season. After the game against San Diego, Sanchez has improved to 1,545 yards, with 12 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Based on my calculations, that would put him on pace for:

3,531 yards, 27 TDs, 14 INTs, 55.6 completion percentage (294 comp., 528 attempts)

There’s a bit of a drop in his completion percentage and overall yardage, but those are still impressive numbers, especially the touchdown total. Last year, 27 TDs would’ve put Mark Sanchez at 8^th overall, just behind Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan. Right now, Sanchez is tied for 5^th in touchdowns, along with Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Schaub, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. With a TD:INT ratio of 2:1, that’s very good.

So good that other segments of the media are beginning to perk up. Pat Yasinkas, of ESPN’s NFC South blog, recently called out a number of quarterbacks—Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, Sam Bradford, and Josh Freeman—who have fallen short of the elite performances expected of them this year. When he took a look at the current crop of throwers to see who might be moving close to moving up instead of them, Mark Sanchez caught his eye first:

After a very slow start, Sanchez had his best game of the season against the Chargers on Sunday. At very least, it was his most efficient game. The numbers were far from spectacular. But the Jets don’t need Sanchez to be spectacular. They just need him to go out there and not hold the offense back.

Even Rich Cimini has to admit that Sanchez has improved, particular when throwing inside the numbers or in the red zone.

The questions remains: how does he get better?

Throw More Completions

It sounds simple, but things in football tend to be that way. According to Cimini’s breakdown, Sanchez’s highest completion percentage comes when he passes inside the numbers. It’s 64.8% in that scenario. His lowest is on pass attempts of 21+ yards. There, he’s at a dismal 20%. Too often, we’ve seen his throws go to the wrong side of the receiver, into the hands of a defender, or simply sail over their heads.

While it’s true that part of Mark’s accuracy problem could be attributed to the ailing health of the offensive line—he had an appalling 31.4 completion percentage against the Ravens—he still only managed to get the ball into his receivers’ hands 54.5% of the time against the Chargers. Making more of those passes will only serve to help him.

Spreading the Ball Around

While the accepted wisdom is that Sanchez isn’t getting the ball to his top receivers often enough, this isn’t necessarily the case. Currently, Dustin Keller is the Jets’ top receiver, with 25 receptions for 372 yards. Presumably, Sanchez is most comfortable with him, as he’s the only target remaining from the quarterback’s rookie season.

But reception totals don’t tell the whole story. In fact, Keller and Plaxico Burress have both been targeted 46 times. The throws to Burress have simply been off-target more often. Santonio Holmes is hot on their tails with 42 total targets. If Sanchez’s accuracy improves, so will his ability to find multiple receivers, keeping defenses off-balance, especially with Jeremy Kerley in the mix.

What the Future Holds

This is football; it’s impossible to accurately predict anything. I may be echoing Bassett here, but I think that if the offensive line remains healthy and the offense continues to show the sparks it did against the Chargers, then Sanchez is poised to have a career year, especially against the pass defenses he’ll be facing after the bye.

When you talk to Packer management, you start to realize that success is a tribute to the careful, constant maintenance of two things: the product on the field and the community’s warm feelings about that product. “It starts with football,” says Murphy. “We structure the organization in a way that we can be successful on the field. But a big part of it is also remembering that this team has a special place in this community. We’re owned by this community. We can’t be perceived as gouging the fans.”

The Packers must constantly walk that fine line between profitability and community. Every other NFL franchise is controlled or entirely owned by one majority shareholder, and NFL rules prohibit otherwise. (The Packers’ ownership structure predates current NFL rules.) Ticket prices, concessions, parking, stadium naming rights—all of that is dictated at most NFL stadiums by whatever the owner feels the market will bear, and every additional dollar is profit into the owner’s pockets.

The Packers don’t operate like that. Take ticket prices: Even after a 9 percent bump this Super Bowl championship year, the highest-priced ticket is $83, lower than all but two other franchises. In contrast to other NFL venues and their garish, wraparound ad signage, Lambeau is as austere as a high school football stadium. The only ads you see are on the scoreboard; the rest of the stadium has intentionally been maintained so that the vista a fan experiences today is similar to what he would have seen in the ’60s.

Matt Yglesias offers his thoughts:

Why shouldn’t more communities be able to purchase NFL franchises and operate them for the broadly conceived good of a fanbase? It actually seems to me that something along these broad ownership lines is the most logical capital structure for most pro sports teams. You could imagine something like a team being owned by a group of several thousand season ticket holders who’d elect a board amongst themselves and hire a professional manager. As fans, their priority would be to put a winning team on the field. Business considerations would of course be an important element of that—you need revenue to hire players and coaches—but the structure of the “business” would resemble the basic relationship involved in being a season ticket holder. You’re putting money on the line because you can afford it and because you love to root for the team.

Sports fandom is a strange thing. We invest an incredible amount of psychic energy and time into rooting for our team, but have no real influence on the internal operations beyond our ability to purchase or not purchase tickets and comment on blogs and radio shows.

Let’s change that! Not that I have any problem with the Jets current ownership (Schottenheimer issues aside), but let’s buy the Jets! Why not?

That explanation doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. For instance, Plaxico Burress, who said this on Wednesday:

“My production hasn’t been all that great either,” Burress said yesterday. “Santonio’s production hasn’t been all that great either. So you can’t just point at one guy. You can’t just say it was his production.”

In a post made on Thursday, Eric Manassy took this issue and ran with it, calling out Kerley’s stats vs Mason’s. In five games, Mason has made 13 receptions for 115 yards and no touchdowns. Kerley has started only one game and has had three reception for 35 yards and a touchdown. Manassy assumes that Kerley’s performance could only have been what the team has seen in preseason.

The other potential factor is budgetary. Tannenbaum said this about the trade:

“Also from my perspective, when you run a team you look at other things like budgets and salary caps and potential for draft choices, what you can do with those. There are other factors that go into it. But Kerley was obviously a big factor.”

As we know, the Jets are currently under the salary cap and Mason would have remained until the end of next season. Rich Cimini has pointed out that the Jets have only saved about $640,000 by dropping Mason from their payroll. As far as I can understand it, Tannenbaum may have recognized that the Jets needed to shake up their receiving corps, and Mason was the way to do it. It wouldn’t do to trade away the two players big signings the Jets made during free agency (Burress and Holmes). Better to dispose of the smaller, less eye-popping contract and hope it makes an impact on the locker room. Still, though, there’s another question left unanswered.

When did the Jets start shopping Mason?

Again, according to the official story, the Houston Texans rang the Jets front office on Tuesday, wondering if Derrick Mason could come over to play, and Mike Tannenbaum sprung him free. It’s beginning to seem as though that’s not the case.

According to an anonymous source cited by Rich Cimini (which could very well be b.s.), the Jets were shopping Mason around two weeks ago, before the Patriots game, and Rex Ryan wanted him off the team as soon as humanly possible. Which makes his benching against New England make much more sense.

However, there’s one final piece to the puzzle (you should see my desk. It looks like Mark Ruffalo’s in Zodiac): that non-meeting the wide receivers had with Rex Ryan about Brian Schottenheimer. The team publicly denied it ever happened, but then there’s this graf in a story about Mason’s trade:

Ryan had what he called “a private conversation” with Mason last week, but both he and Tannenbaum reiterated that Mason’s locker room comments did not play into their decisions.

Some slippery language here. We’ve gone from the conversation never happening to it happening but Mason’s “locker room comment” not affecting his trade. Of course, we’re not told the location of this conversation. Had it been in Ryan’s office, it wouldn’t have been in the locker room, would it?

I think it’s time for me to take my tinfoil hat off. Despite all the confusion, it seems like the following happened: the team started losing, Derrick Mason and his fellow wide receivers met with Coach Ryan to complain about Schottenheimer. It’s quite possible the coaching staff saw Mason as the impetus for these complaints, and he was let go. I imagine the coaches do not want to take the blame about as much as the players want to pin the team’s struggles on the coaches. Now that an example has been made, if the play does not improve, the coaches may need to begin looking inward.

An Offensive Resurgence

I imagine this an obvious point by now but it’s still one worth making. The Jets offensive line has been downright horrible in the past two weeks and the offense has suffered tremendously. Now, with the return of Mangold, it’s time to get back on track. The Jets will need to work fast, rushing often against the Patriots and exploiting their woeful pass defense. Considering how many points the Patriots can score, if the Jets can’t get a lot of points onto the scoreboard quickly, this will be a major disaster.

Shying Away from the Blitz

In last year’s AFC Divisional win, the Jets only blitzed 30% of the time, blanketing the Patriots receivers in coverage. It’s likely they’ll do something similar today. According to SNY Why Guys, if the Jets blitz 40% of the time or more, they will lose. By a large margin.

Pro Football Focus shares a similar sentiment. According to their analysis, Tom Brady has an unbelievable 128.2 quarterback rating when blitzed. The Patriots will likely be expecting to see a similar gameplan to what they saw in January. It’ll be up to Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine to further complicate their looks, ramping up the confusion that Tom Brady experienced in that game. Putting Darrelle Revis on Wes Welker, Brady’s favorite target, certainly won’t hurt.

What do you think? What do the Jets need to do to win this game and stop their skid?