Another Poor Showing by Sanchez

A capsule look at the Jets’ 17-13 loss to Denver.

KEY PLAY BY JETS

It will be forgotten after Tim Tebow’s final drive …. but the Jets’ first touchdown came in an unorthodox manner — a fumble recovery by guard Matt Slauson. The play that ushered them to the doorstep was helped by a textbook block by Brandon Moore, who cleared space for Joe McKnight on his 12-yard screen pass to the 1. Slauson became the first Jets offensive lineman to score on a fumble recovery since Randy Rasmussen on Oct. 8, 1972.

NOTABLE NUMBER: 5
That is how many Denver possessions began in Jets territory, resulting in 3 points. As the Jets hoped, their defense largely stuffed the run, forcing Tebow into passing situations. He overthrew some passes and underthrew others, but his receivers also struggled to gain separation against the cornerbacks. After going 3 for 3 on the opening drive, Tebow went 6 for 17, but scored the winning touchdown.

TALKING POINT
What do the Jets do now after another ineffective performance by Mark Sanchez?

Tim Tebow in His Words After Driving Denver to Victory

It looks as if we’ll just have to get used to it.

On the one hand, we have the headline “Tim Tebow Scores Late Touchdown On 95 Yard Drive To Win, After Doing Nothing All Game,” with Jason Lisk of the Big Lead correctly pointing out: “Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos offense was dreadful. Dreadful! For the first 54 minutes of the game.”

On the other, we have Woody Paige rhapsodizing in The Denver Post about The Drive Too: “Tebow went where Elway had gone before.”

Tebow continues to win and continues to drive analysts crazy. Let’s just let Tebow tell it in his words, as provided by the Broncos’ Web site.

On Denver’s final, game-winning drive

“First and foremost I just want to thank my lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and thank my teammates for believing in me and believing in each other for 60 minutes. I think, referring to that last drive, I think it was just a bunch of guys that kept fighting that had been knocked down a bunch of times but continued to get back up. I’m just so proud of those guys, for their resiliency, their patience and their determination.”

“We were aggressive. We went at them. [WR] Eddie [Royal] made a great play on the first (play). It was man-to-man (defense), and I threw him a swing, he made somebody miss, he got (eight yards). And then we were able to get some on the option. We didn’t necessarily have huge plays, but we just got enough to keep moving the sticks and found a way at the end, and [WR Demaryius Thomas] came up with a big catch, and the offensive line was just grinding, working hard and scratching for every single yard we could get. They made my job very easy there at the end.”

On what the offense talked about just prior to the drive
“[Offensive coordinator] Coach [Mike] McCoy just said, ‘Keep believing.’ When we were in the huddle, what we were talking about as an offense was: ‘You want opportunities like this because this is an opportunity for greatness as an offense. We haven’t done anything this whole game, but we have an opportunity to do something special right now. Let’s go out there and do it.’ Everybody was focused, and you could see that their will was taking over as an offense. I think that’s pretty special.”

“It was just important that we had a mind-set and everybody went out there and rallied behind each other and just gave it everything they had.”

On what McCoy said just prior to the drive
“We went over a few ideas, but we were ready to go back out there. He said a few things—it wasn’t a huge, long speech—but, you know: ‘Keep believing. Let’s go get this thing done.’”

On his game-winning touchdown run
“That was the second time in the game [the Jets] had blitzed everybody against us. And they were playing the corners pretty hard off, and we ran a three-vertical (wide receivers) concept against them, and I knew we were in field-goal range, and I didn’t necessarily just want to throw up a jump-ball because they were playing so far off. So when I knew they were blitzing everybody, and I saw [S] (Eric Smith) coming off the left side, and he came and he hugged tight. And I knew he was going to be extra because they were bringing one more guy than we could block, and I knew (the blocker) got a hand on him, and once he came tight, I just figured he wasn’t going to think I was going to try and get outside and escape. So I just believed that the tackle and the tight end were going to get the block, and that I could try to hopefully outrun him to the edge, and thank the Lord I was able to do so.”

“I don’t think (the outside) was supposed to be open. (Smith) was kind of the hugger, and he hugged tight against and stayed tight. So once he’s coming in and planting and trying to stay as tight as he can, thinking I’m going to be in the pocket … once I knew that, I just kind of jab-stepped and stayed outside, and he’s going this way, and I’m going that way. That’s hard for someone to really plant and get outside. I was very thankful he was running really hard and coming hard inside because that’s hard to make that cut, so it made it a lot easier on me getting outside of him.”

On if he was surprised by the Jets’ all-out blitz on the play
“We were kind of expecting it. They were going to be aggressive and try to stop us and could also [have] been expecting a quarterback run or quarterback draw, or something inside. So we had a great play against it, and Coach McCoy made a great call, and I was just thankful I was able to get around the end.”

On if he likes late-game drama
“I like winning, but I wish it wasn’t quite that stressful.”

On how he’s going to celebrate the win
“What’s special is I’ve got a lot of friends and family in for this game. [So] first, just thank the Lord and savior and hang out with my friends and family. Honestly, I played pretty hard, so I’ll probably be a little bit tired. [I’ll] go get a little bit of food and probably go to sleep.”

On if he plans on tweeting any of his critics
“I probably will tweet [former NFL defensive end] Hugh Douglas because I did hear that he said if we won he was going to church on Sunday. So I’m going to tweet him. He better be in his Sunday best! I hope he can sing praise and worship, too. So we’ll see.”

On what he’s thankful for this Thanksgiving
“That would be a long list, but just to share a few: first and foremost would be my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and I’d say behind that would be my family and also in this time is our military, who put their lives on the line every day for us so we can come out here and play a game. I’m very thankful for all three of those things.”

JOHN FOX, BRONCOS COACH
On Tebow
“Tim is going to be Tim. You don’t want to change too much about a guy that makes plays and makes plays in pressure situations. Our staff [Quarterbacks Coach] Adam Gase and [Offensive Coordinator] Mike McCoy have done a tremendous job of working with him and bringing him up to speed. We had a couple issues, but he’s a young player. He’s a young quarterback. It’s a very hard position, and those things are going to happen. He’ll just grow and get better with every snap.”

On Tebow’s character
“He’s just a competitive dude. He’s super competitive. He never lays his sword down. He’s going to fight you to death, and that’s just his nature. He’s a great young man.”

On the team’s faith in QB Tim Tebow during final drive
“When that happened it was like, we have 95 yards. Everybody was kind of like, ‘watch this.’ On the sideline it felt like we knew something was going to happen. People always say that when you win, but we felt like something was going to happen, probably because of the way we have been finishing games over the last couple weeks. Again, No. 15 [Tebow] proved to be very impressive on that drive.”

CORNERBACK CHAMP BAILEY

On  Tebow
“One thing about that quarterback: he is going to keep grinding. As a defense, we just have to keep him in this game – keep this team in the game and in the fourth quarter you never know what you are going to get. We are never out of it, and it is a good feeling because I know if we are close we have a chance.”

Rangers Surge Behind Balanced Scoring and Stalwart Defensemen

The Rangers enter Saturday night’s game in Montreal with a seven-game winning streak. Even after skating-intensive workouts, there were smiles in every corner of the Rangers’ practice facility this week.

“This has been a lot of fun because of the pride we put into each practice and each game as a team,” said defenseman Ryan McDonagh, an early-season standout. “We feel good about what we’ve accomplished because it hasn’t been our stars every night. Look around the room, and you’ll see everyone has contributed.”

Here are four keys to the Rangers’ winning streak.

Scoring Support

The Rangers’ highest-skilled and most compensated forwards — Marian Gaborik (4 goals, 3 assists) and Brad Richards (3 goals, 2 assists) — have been major factors in the run, but each was held off the scoresheet in three of the seven wins. The rest of team’s top six offensive forwards have stepped up: Ryan Callahan (5 goals, 3 assists), Derek Stepan (3 goals, 5 assists), Artem Anisimov (1 goal, 6 assists) and Brandon Dubinsky (1 goal, 5 assists).

“Confidence spreads through the team when so many guys are getting big goals,” Gaborik said. “We’ve had a different hero just about every night.”

The Rangers have out-scored their opponents, 27-11, over the seven wins.

“We’re making big plays at big times,” center Brian Boyle said.

In their most recent victory, a 4-2 win over the Islanders on Tuesday, Richards broke a 2-2 tie by converting a pass from Dubinsky with just under five minutes left in the third period. The Rangers’ nine game-winning goals this season have been scored by seven different players. Callahan and Richards lead the team with two each.

Standup Defense

The Rangers are without Marc Staal, their No. 1 defenseman, who remains sidelined with concussion symptoms. But two pairings of youngsters have embraced the responsibility of shutting down top lines. McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Michael Sauer and Michael Del Zotto are a combined plus-20 during the winning streak. Girardi has averaged 27 minutes 46 seconds of ice time, tops in the N.H.L. McDonagh, who averages just over 25 minutes a game, is 12th.

“With Marc out, we took it upon ourselves to do the job while he takes the times he needs,” McDonagh said.

McDonagh, 22, credits his playing time in the Rangers’ first-round playoff loss to Washington last April as the “wake-up call” for this season.

“In the good moments and bad ones, I learned a lot about a defenseman needs to do at this level,” he said.

McDonagh benefits by being paired with Girardi – at 27, the oldest and most accomplished of the group. The 21-year-old Del Zotto, a precocious puck carrier, is thriving alongside Sauer, a 6-foot-4 stay-at-home type. Coach John Tortorella said his team’s defense is the biggest factor in the Rangers’ knack for scoring clutch goals in close games.

“It’s our play away from the puck,” Tortorella continually stressed to reporters over the last week.

How each member of the blue-line quartet has improved over last season as measured by plus/minus per game:

Goaltending by Two

Henrik Lundqvist has a save percentage of .933, allowing just nine goals over his five wins in the streak. But his goaltending statistics are not even the best on his team. Martin Biron, his high-quality backup, shut out Winnipeg and gave up only two goals to San Jose in his pair of wins.

“Everyone knows Hank is one of the best goalies in the world,” Callahan said of Lundqvist, “but we have the luxury of two great goalies behind us. I don’t know how many teams can say they have the confidence in both our goalies like we do in Hank and Marty. We’ve made our share of mistakes in these games, and we really struggled early in the season. They’ve been our two of our most important players.”

There is an added benefit to Biron’s superb play. Lundqvist has played at least 68 games in each of the last five regular seasons. When the Rangers made the playoffs three of those years, he has not been fresh for the postseason. Tortorella’s trust in Biron should result in Lundqvist starting a more manageable 60 games.

Strong Work Habits

Despite the seven-game streak, the Rangers say it has been easy to stay humble.

“We want to get better each day,” Tortorella said of his team’s approach to practices.

Boyle said: “The good thing is, we’ve been far from perfect. So there’s been plenty for us to work on.”

After their victory Tuesday over the Islanders, the Rangers took one day to rest and then had two practices. Skills were sharpened in drills. Special teams play was adjusted. Line combinations, as always, were tinkered.

“Don’t get comfortable,” Tortorella said before his team left for Montreal. “We want our team to play the right way, and detail work is a part of it. To have a chance against Montreal, we’ll have to be better than we were against the Islanders.”