Kellen Clemens Knows Jets Job Is Mark Sanchez's to Lose

Kellen Clemens knows the deal. New head coach Rex Ryan spent the early part of the spring suggesting that the Jets would happily go into next season with Clemens and Brett Ratliff battling for the right to replace the eminently replaceable Brett Favre.

Pretty sure nobody believed that, including Clemens. The Jets were interested in Jay Cutler as he whined his way out of Denver, and when that didn't happen, they swapped first-round picks with the Browns and took Mark Sanchez (and sent Ratliff to Cleveland in the process).

So while New York has their quarterback of the future, Ryan wants us to know that the 2009 job is yet to be decided. Again, no one's buying this. Via the New York Daily News' Rich Cimini:

Clemens addressed the media for the first time since the draft. (This was an open locker-room day in Florham Park, N.J.) That gave him nearly two weeks to absorb the blow and script his answers. Publicly, he spewed the company line, clinging to Rex Ryan's promise it will be an open competition. Either he's in denial or he's trying to be a good soldier. I suspect that it's the latter. He has to know the real deal.

"It's an open competition," he said. "I'm going to get a fair shot at the starting job. That's all I can ask for."

Clemens also said, "For me, it comes down to a simple choice: I can get mad and get frustrated or I can get better. I'm choosing to get better."

Hey, the glass-half-full attitude worked for Sage Rosenfels (until Favre changes his mind in 30 minutes, anyway), and maybe Clemens is hoping for the same. More likely: he knows his future with the Jets, and it'll be a lot like his recent past: watching from the sidelines.

Cimini also writes that he talked to several Jets players and "Privately, they expect Sanchez to be the favorite, based on his draft status and the amount the team gave up to get him." (The NFL is a business, after all.) I have yet to hear anyone object to the idea of Sanchez as the starter.

Unlike Matthew Stafford, who, in addition to everyday rigors of adjusting to the NFL, is going to an outfit that couldn't muster a win last season, Sanchez has the benefit of playing for the Jets, a team that won nine games in 2008. Plus, Ryan hopes to replicate in New York what happened in Baltimore last year: surrounding a rookie starting quarterback with a stout running game, a solid offensive line, and a suffocating defense.

And Clemens, like the rest of us, knows this.