Great Moments In Sports Talk Radio: Playbookgateghazi

Last night, on the Sedano and Stink show on ESPN radio, co-host Jorge Sedano asked a question: Why do we make such a big deal out of this stuff?

The stuff he was referring to was NFL-related, namely the "revelation" from new Browns coach and former Jets assistant Mike Pettine that his former boss, Jets coach and professional loose cannon Rex Ryan, had put his team at a disadvantage by handing a copy of the defensive playbook to Alabama coach Nick Saban. Saban, according to the narrative, then turned around and gave the book to his good buddy, Wesleyan alum Bill Belichick, which led to Patriots QB Tom Brady good-naturedly taunting Jets folk at Wes Welker's wedding that he had access to the Jets' playbook. Pettine told this story to make himself look good, Ryan responded by saying that Pettine's a self-serving jackass, and the whole thing has simmered along nicely as a cross between a telenovela and two third graders having a recess slap fight.

Your Jets Update

Mark Sanchez is probably out for the year with a busted labrum.

Which means that there's still a good chance Rex Ryan won't announce his quarterback until the second quarter of Sunday's game.

Sanchez Newtons

Over at Jets Over The Pond, Matt Goldstein (full disclosure here: Matt's my cousin, and I love him even if he is a Jets fan) compares the shambling husk of Mark Sanchez to Panthers QB Cam Newton. While neither of them has lived up to the expectations laid upon them by a hyper-rabid media and both have been dinged for occasionally acting like young men with gobs of money whose whims have been catered to since they were old enough to slow dance with a girl in the late stages of a bar mitzvah reception, they've taken radically different paths to their current level of Not Being The Next Tom Brady.

Your Handy-Dandy Conspiracy Theory About Mark Sanchez's Injury

If it had been Blane Gabbert, nobody would care.

Instead, it's Mark Sanchez who's down after a bizarre sequence of events, which means it's front page news. Never before has a training camp QB battle between two nonentities - the misfiring Sanchez, whose skills and poise have eroded under four years of Rex Ryan's "coaching" and inferior offensive lines, and the clearly not-ready-for-prime-time Geno Smith, whose main back-of-box feature at this point is that he's not Sanchez - been so endlessly dragged out in the public eye.

Sit, Rex.

In a week marked by tragedy in Texas, Boston, and Iraq, it's very generous of Rex Ryan to provide the healing gift of laughter. The fact that he didn't do it intentionally is besides the point.