Jets May Rest Sanchez Against Bills--His Health Key for Playoff Run

After declaring in his postgame press conference Sunday that Mark Sanchez, who played with a slight cartilage tear in his throwing shoulder, would most likely sit out Sunday's regular-season finale against the Bills, Ryan today said he may prefer to keep Sanchez and the hot offense going for at least part of Sunday's game.

"I don't want to say 100 percent he's out or he's in," Ryan said on a conference call from Chicago, where the team was stuck for another day with the storm shutting down airports at home. "I don't know if [sitting out] is best for him. Obviously his health is the No. 1 priority. But we can't afford to have him take a dip here heading into the playoffs."

Sanchez had two miserable games before he pulled himself together in the win over the Steelers. He threw for a touchdown on Sunday and was clearly not the cause of the 38-34 loss.

And Ryan still sees a benefit to playing his healthy starters to get to 11 wins and avoid going into the postseason having lost four of five.

"I want to win this game," he said. "It's important to win this game. We want to go in [to the playoffs] with a win."

The Jets don't have much to gain by beating the Bills, although they can improve their seed from No. 6 to No. 5. Even then, they'd still have to go on the road for the first round of the playoffs.

Sanchez has improved his accuracy over the last two games too. He has completed 65 percent of his passes for 439 yards, one touchdown and one interception. With the once-vaunted defense struggling, the Jets may have to rely on Sanchez and the offense in the playoffs.

"My first thought was, 'Let's not even play him,' " Ryan said. "But two things: I want to win this game. It's important to win this game. If we get to 11 wins, it's happened only five times in the history of the franchise. That would be huge. Plus, you want to go in with a win.

"But his health is the No. 1 concern. It's a fine line. He's hot right now. We need him to stay at this level. ... So those are the things we'll consider. I don't want to say he's 100 percent in or out, to be honest."

Sanchez's health was a concern, but he made it through the game without any apparent problems. Sanchez (24-for-37, 269 yards, one touchdown) played well until his final pass, when he was intercepted by Bears safety Chris Harris in the final minute.

Afterward, Sanchez acknowledged that his right shoulder is "pretty sore." He has a slight cartilage tear in his throwing shoulder. Sanchez said he'd like to play next week, but he recognized the importance of rest.

"This isn't my 18th year, so I need as many reps as possible," he said. "With the situation we're in now, with my shoulder, we want to see how it responds to the game. We'll take it day to day. I'm with Coach. Whatever he thinks is best for me and the team, we'll handle it like that."

But the fact Sanchez' health already looms as a key playoff story line is itself a story line.

The Jets and their quarterback have come a long way from Week 1, when coaches resumed the 2009 game plan of merely trying to prevent Sanchez from losing games.

That night he totaled a season-low 10 completions in a season-low 21 attempts for a season-low 74 yards in a 10-9 loss to the Ravens.

Since then Sanchez has grown while the defense has regressed compared to last season, a reality that was clear throughout the loss to the Bears.

But it's fair to say Sanchez has improved enough to where the Jets don't have to be great on defense to win, only better than they were against the Bears - and, obviously, the Patriots.

Sanchez looked good for most of Sunday, finishing the first half 13-for-15 for 156 yards, with one of the misses being a key drop in the end zone by Dustin Keller.

The second-year, 24-year-old quarterback now is 2-for-2 making the playoffs and can no longer use Ryan's formerly feared defense as a crutch.

But in a season in which the Jets generally have gone as the quarterback has, and in which their pass rush has evaporated and their secondary has looked confused at times, he might be their best hope.

Not that Sanchez is quite ready to look at it that way.

"We're all going to have to do it at the same time if we're going to make a run like we did last year," he said. "We know we're a tough matchup for some people.

"We have great wideouts. We have great offensive linemen. When the defense is on, they are on, and there's no stopping them. You can't throw it anywhere, or you can't run anywhere."

Note the interesting choice of words: "When the defense is on."

Remember when that was a given?