Sanchez Loves Tebow, Wants His Receivers on the Field

Today’s minicamp practice was the first one open to the public, starring Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow. Being there firsthand, there wasn’t much one-sided cheering in favor of either one, although the weather early in the day may have held some of the crowd back a bit.

Today, Mark had only positive things to say about his new backup:

“Our team does a good job of pushing each other and Tim only adds to that,” he said. “We’re all learning from each other, he’s got a great attitude, he’s always smiling, he’s always excited and he works out very hard. He’s just a great fit for the team. But there’s other guys around the room and other coaches that you really want to look at, too.

He went on to say that all players push each other and teach each other, including Tim Tebow to him and vice versa.

Early in the day, Rex said that Tebow would only work with the first team in wildcat or special packages. He did end up taking two reps with the starters anyway, but don’t read into it much. Mark Sanchez was clearly the better performer today.

As it has been documented, Stephen Hill and Santonio Holmes, as well as other wide receivers on the team, have had to scale back their reps this week with nagging injuries. As such, the potential of this offense really has been held back a bit.

“We gotta get them on the field,” he said. “I mean, on paper it looks great, we just have to push each other to get healthy, stay healthy and take care of our bodies. We really need those guys out on the field.”

It certainly hurts to have all of these injuries, but then again, it is early, as Sanchez noted:

“On one hand, sure it might be,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s one of those things where we’re not playing a game next week. Those guys have plenty of time to recover, hopefully find out how they were injured or whatever it was and improve on that.

Mark is happy with the pace that the offense is moving along at, learning the new system. This is encouraging. The team is starting from square one with Tony Sparano, and from viewing the offense, they are getting the hang of it. Yes, it’s early. You can see the makings of a physical, yet disciplined offense that will be able to get the ball down the field.

Hopefully this will continue.