Mark Sanchez still prone to making crucial mistakes

Leaning on a wall outside the visiting locker room at Lincoln Financial Field late Sunday afternoon, Mike Tannenbaum didn't dare discuss how Mark Sanchez had helped to win him one more football game.

The Dolphins' vice president of football operations, Tannenbaum was the Jets' general manager in 2009 when they traded up to draft Sanchez with the fifth overall pick, so sure were he and Rex Ryan that Sanchez's elite pedigree and affable personality made him the perfect franchise quarterback. Over the next four years, though, the Jets fell victim to a trend and a truth that they inflicted upon themselves: The more responsibility they gave Sanchez in their offense, the worse they got.

From back-to-back appearances in the AFC championship game to a 6-10 record in 2012 and Tannenbaum's subsequent firing, the franchise is still trying to recover from Sanchez's 2011 and 2012 seasons, when he committed an NFL-high 52 turnovers and couldn't be counted on to make the safe, smart play when necessary.

So after the Eagles had lost to the Dolphins, 20-19, on Sunday, after Sanchez had thrown that crushing interception in the Miami end zone to Reshad Jones with less than 41/2 minutes left in regulation, Tannenbaum didn't say a word. He declined to comment, saying he never speaks on the record after games, but he'd seen this from Sanchez before. Here was that familiar face, making a familiar mistake.

"We clearly saw," Tannenbaum said in an interview last year, "that when he played well, we could win."

That is always the small hope and tantalizing rationalization with Sanchez: If he weren't so careless with the football, he'd be a viable option as a starting quarterback. Except after the Eagles received a half-season of firsthand evidence of who Sanchez was, after he threw 11 interceptions and fumbled nine times in nine games, they still re-signed him to be their backup.

And when Sam Bradford took that vicious hit from linebacker Chris McCain in the third quarter Sunday, leaving the game with a concussion and a shoulder injury, Sanchez gave in once again to his most destructive quality as a quarterback: his instinct to make the great play instead of the prudent one.

Consider the interception. The Eagles are at the Miami 11-yard line and trail by a point. It's second down. They want a touchdown, but they don't need one. Even with Caleb Sturgis as their kicker, they will have a relatively easy field goal, and the lead, if they don't foul up. Then Sanchez sees Miles Austin on a crossing route in the end zone. Austin isn't so much running a precise route as he is trotting like a jogger along Kelly Drive, but no matter: He isn't open.

Nevertheless, rather than dump the ball off to tight end Brent Celek, Sanchez tries to throw Austin open. The interception was just one of a dozen unforced errors by the Eagles on Sunday, of their giving away a game to a lesser opponent, but understand: If Sanchez throws the ball out of bounds there, if he takes a sack, if he just falls to the ground, the Eagles probably win. In context, his decision is downright reckless, and his coach didn't bother defending him for it.

"We were hoping he would just take a peek," Chip Kelly said. "If you don't have it because they're in coverage - it looked to me like Brent was open underneath - just dump it down and play the next snap."

There's no denying that the Eagles' offense plays faster with Sanchez than it does with Bradford, or than it did last season with Nick Foles. "That's how I've always tried to run it," Sanchez said. "You just get up and get going as fast as we can." It might seem like nothing but an advantage. Finally, the logic goes, here is a quarterback capable of orchestrating what Kelly wants at the speed he wants it. But the drawback is obvious: In Kelly's system, Sanchez plays quarterback as if he were a kid who'd eaten 17 dispensers worth of Pez before taking the field, and if you give a mistake-prone quarterback more opportunities to make mistakes, the results will be nothing but predictable.

Remember, too, that the Eagles have nine new starters on offense, and that it took half the season before Bradford began to look comfortable and confident. Just as he did, he got hurt Sunday, and the unit had to adjust to Sanchez - and struggled to do so. Routine handoffs from him to DeMarco Murray turned into Twister games. On what could have been the game's decisive play, Riley Cooper didn't get set on the line of scrimmage, a penalty that erased a 22-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz. Several times, Sanchez threw to receivers who either weren't anticipating the ball or had run different routes than he'd expected.

"He's a guy who even in practice pushes the envelope - very quick with his tempo, very demonstrative with it," tackle Lane Johnson said. "It was unfortunate, that one play, but he's the guy who went in there and created a lot of energy. That's the way he's always been."

Yes, it is. It's why the cries to bench Bradford for Sanchez were always misguided, why the Eagles will survive for just so long if Bradford misses significant time, why Mike Tannenbaum didn't need to say anything at all Sunday. Same small hopes. Same big mistakes. Same Mark Sanchez.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski