Jets Sanchez wants to be perfect against Patriots

There’s good and bad when you hear a quarterback say that he has to be perfect on a given day.

For the New York Jets, hearing that quarterback Mark Sanchez realizes he must be perfect this Sunday against the New England Patriots may not necessary be a good thing.

Associated Press

“It’s always going to take a good game by the quarterback to beat that team and that defense because Coach [Bill] Belichick is going to have them in the right position,” Sanchez said. “It doesn’t mean you have to go out and make a spectacular play, but just understand the situation.

“You watch Eli’s drive last week and it was awesome — one of the best drives you’ve seen by a quarterback this season, but he did the little things right. He took the underneath routes when he could. He got a penalty that got him down there and took advantage of it. … Whether it comes down to the last drive or just being accurate all game, that’s what it takes to beat them. You just can’t give them anything. You can’t throw one to them.”

Sanchez knows this is an important game.  But will the game suffocate his natural ability and force him to into a situation where he can’t let things develop?

In other words, will the moment overtake him?

He watched Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Pats two weeks ago; and he watched Eli Manning and the Giants do the same last week.

Can Sanchez make it three in a row?

“We have to maintain drives,” head coach Rex Ryan said. “When you look at it, Pittsburgh, what they did defensively, you look at their numbers and they played extremely well on defense, not taking anything away from them, but their offense really controlled the game. They punted once in the game, and that was with 30 seconds left. So I think that would obviously be what you want against a high-powered offense like [the Patriots’]. As good as our defense is, it’s not near as good as when we’re on the sideline.”

Sanchez turned the ball over twice last week , including a horrible red zone interception.  Will he learn his lesson this week?

“I need to do whatever it takes for our team to win, and that’s get completions, convert on third down, put us in the right run checks, just be very accurate,” Sanchez said. “Don’t give them any cheap ones. That almost hurt us last week and our defense bailed us out, so just don’t give them anything and we should be OK.”