Manish Mehta: Analyzing Sanchez under Pressure

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Analyzing Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez under pressure

BY Manish Mehta

Mark Sanchez’s NFL resume includes these three truths:

1) He is the team leader.

2) He makes plays in the clutch.

3) There’s plenty of room for growth.

The Jets quarterback has elevated his play when it matters the most with an NFL-record tying four road playoff wins in his first two seasons. He’s also had a marked statistical jump in the postseason. Consider the breakdown:

Sanchez has more interceptions (33) than touchdowns (29) in 31 career regular-season games. However, he has a 3:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio (9 TDs, 3 INTs) in six postseason games. Sanchez’s largest improvement in the playoffs centers on his accuracy. His completion percentage jumps 10 percent – from 54.4% in the regular season to 60.5% in the postseason.

Although Sanchez has thrived in big moments, he needs to improve his accuracy amid chaos.

ProFootballFocus.com did a statistical analysis of performance under pressure by signal callers across the league in 2010.

Thanks to one of the best offensive lines in the league, Sanchez was under pressure on just 27.66% of his 640 drop backs, which ranked 31st out of 34 QBs in the study. (Only Peyton Manning, Matt Hasselbeck and Jon Kitna were under duress fewer times).

Sanchez had the lowest completion percentage under pressure in the league at 35.46%. However, he did a solid job not turning the ball over in the face of pressure. Sanchez was intercepted only 2.82% of the time when under pressure, which ranked 18th in the NFL. He was also sacked on only 16.95% of his drop backs under pressure, which was 14th best.

BOTTOM LINE: Sanchez has made great strides in his first two seasons, but he’ll be the first to tell you that he needs to improve his accuracy to become an elite NFL quarterback.

ProFootballFocus.com (twitter.com/profootballfocus) will have a more detailed analysis on Monday, but here are a few highlights:

QBs PRESSURED THE MOST (% of drop backs)

1. Jay Cutler: 41.42%

2. Josh Freeman: 40.99%

3. Michael Vick: 40.78%

4. Donovan McNabb: 40.38%

5. Jason Campbell: 39.69%

MOST ACCURATE QBS UNDER PRESSURE (completion %)

1. Kevin Kolb: 59.18%

2. Jon Kitna: 59.02%

3. Drew Brees: 55.74%

4. Peyton Manning 54.49%

5. Tony Romo: 54.39%

For more Jets news, follow Manish Mehta on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TheJetsStream