Jets Introduce Smooth, Savvy Sanchez

NEW YORK -- Mark Sanchez wasn't at USC's spring practice Saturday, but when Trojans coach Pete Carroll called that night to congratulate Sanchez on being the No. 5 pick in the NFL draft, he gleefully told his former quarterback the story of what went down.

"He said they had a live feed of the draft on the Megatron video board there at the Coliseum," Sanchez said Sunday at Radio City Music Hall. "And every time an SC guy got picked, they'd stop practice. And he said when they showed that Cleveland had traded the (fifth) pick and that the Jets picked me, he said 25,000 people just went nuts."

Sanchez also admitted that Carroll must have been stopping practice a lot.

With 222 picks in the books, there have been 11 USC players selected in this year's draft. Eight of those have been defensive players. And that's a big reason that Sanchez feels he can answer those questions about his lack of experience (16 Division I starts at QB) by pointing out that he played against the best college players in the country every day he practiced.

"At USC practices, it's always 1's vs. 1's, every day," Sanchez said. "I know that I played against the best guys for years. All those guys are going in the draft today, and I got the chance to compete against them in practice every year."

Sanchez doesn't look like a guy who's been on three cross-country flights in the past five days. Resplendent in a dark three-piece suit and a Jets-green tie that was picked out by his Aunt Arlene on the Sanchez family's late-night trip to the airport Saturday, he stopped by the Jets' training facility in Florham Park, N.J., early in the afternoon before heading over to Radio City to be introduced to what was left of the very excited crowd of Jets fans.

Now, he's planning to stay in New Jersey for a week, getting to know his new team and his new digs, and following the advice former USC quarterback Carson Palmer gave him when they spoke Saturday night.

"He told me, 'You want to be in there early every day and staying late. You want to know the names of the people who clean up that facility late at night. That's how dedicated you want to be,' " Sanchez said.

He also got a call from Matt Leinart, another former USC Heisman Trophy winner, though one who hasn't yet had the same kind of success Palmer has had in the pros.

"He just told me, 'Don't let anybody put any negative perceptions on you or get you down,' " Sanchez said. "He went from Heisman Trophy, national championship at USC to being a backup in the pros. He said it's been humbling, and he's really starting to learn about what it takes to be dedicated to a team."

Sanchez has got a lot of calls in the past 24 hours, but one of the most important may be one he placed -- to Jets quarterback Kellen Clemens, with whom he is now in competition for the starting quarterback job.

"He told me congratulations and he welcomed me to the Jets family," Sanchez said of Clemens, with whom he shares an agent. "That shows a lot about the kind of guy he is. It's going to be a tough competition, but it's going to be a fun one between the two of us."

Two weeks ago at Jets minicamp, Clemens said he wasn't paying much attention to the Jets' draft plans and that he figured, as the incumbent, his job was to work to make sure he had a head start on anybody they did decide to bring in. Sanchez agrees with the assessment.

"I am way behind," Sanchez said. "Years behind. I need to get into this playbook and start getting reps as soon as I can."

For that reason, he said (with his agent standing right there!) that he didn't expect it would be tough to come to an agreement on a contract. Said it in kind of a way that made you think it was already done, actually.

"A holdout wouldn't be very helpful in terms of getting me on the field where I need to be," Sanchez said. "So I wouldn't anticipate that."

The Jets have a minicamp that starts in two weeks. By that time, all the smiling, all the interviews, all the parading around New York in a suit and white-and-green baseball cap will be over, and it'll be time to get to work. And as much fun as Sanchez admits he's had for the past few weeks, splashing his face all over every media outlet he could find in a stunningly successful effort to show NFL teams he was a face-of-the-franchise caliber guy, that's the part he's really looking forward to.

"Nothing's been accomplished yet," he said. "The work starts now. It's time to get out there, get studying and get working to earn my spot on this team."

His goal is to be the Jets' starting quarterback in Week 1, when they face the Houston Texans, whose first-round pick just happens to have been Brian Cushing, a USC linebacker. A guy against whom Sanchez played every day last year in practice.