QB Mark Sanchez
My good friend Peter King has the backstory on the Jets-Browns draft day trade for the fifth overall pick that became Mark Sanchez in today's Monday Morning Quarterback, which as of this writing is still the featured NFL story on the SI.com site.
I can't confirm all of Peter's facts, but the story he weaves about Abram Elam is interesting. Seems that Dawn Aponte, a former Jets capologist now with the Browns' front office, noted a clause in the CBA, the implication of which was that the trade could've fallen apart.
Since Elam was a restricted free agent who signed an offer sheet with the Browns, only to have the Jets match that offer and retain him. The article in the CBA states that if Team A matches an offer sheet from Team B, it can't trade the player in question from A to B for at least one calendar year, unless the player consents to the trade.
I'll let you read the rest of the story on SI.com, but Jets fans should be heartened by this bottom-line opinion about the trades to get Sanchez and Shonn Greene by one of the best NFL columnists in the business:
"I love teams that love players and, within reason, break the bank to get them. I like the moves."
Sanchez Learns the Citi Never Sleeps
Mark Sanchez has already taken some friendly fire from a New York institution that has a stadium named after it. Sanchez is lined up to throw out the first pitch at tonight's Mets-Marlins series opener. So he said early this morning on his Twitter account http://twitter.com/MarkSanchez, "See you @ City Field tonight!"
About two hours ago, Sanchez offered this amended tweet: "Citi just called and said I better get their name right... Citi Field that is. Rookie move I guess."
If the only rookie move Sanchez is guilty of is misspelling Citi in a tweet, the Jets will be fine.
Greene's Playoff Performances
This factoid may interest only me (oops, I'm channeling PK), but one of the reasons I have researched every high school playoff game in New Jersey history is to find nuggets involving Jersey guys who have become Jets players.
Third-round RB Shonn Greene perhaps showed his first signs of greatness in the 2002 South Jersey Group 4 quarterfinals. Playing for Winslow Township High, which until 2001 was Edgewood High, Greene had an impressive playoff debut. He ran for touchdowns of 5, 63 and 61 yards as Winslow walloped Lenape, 38-13.
Edgewood went to the playoffs only once, and Winslow has returned only once since, in '07. So Greene first helped lift a franchise to playoff-caliber in high school. Then last year, as he was rushing for Iowa single-season records of 1,850 yards and 20 TDs, he contributed 121 yards to the Hawkeyes' 31-10 Outback Bowl victory over South Carolina.
Radar Metrics
The numbers remain impressive. Tuesday is technically the second anniversary of the Radar, which began transmitting on April 28, 2007. But since that was the first day of the '07 draft, we could just as easily say we've already celebrated our birthday and have moved on to Year 3 of life.
But the point of this is to thank all of you Radar commenters for helping to make this a popular landing spot for Jets fans. Over the draft weekend, we cleared 34,000 posted comments. Not as sexy as 50,000, but a fine five-digit number nevertheless.
For those new to the Radar, from Los Angeles or Iowa City, perhaps, and for those old hands, just a reminder to everyone that we're not trying to keep anyone from expressing his or her opinion, but sometimes we have to. Please no vulgarities, profanities or obscenities or abbreviations thereof, no namecalling or personal attacks, no libelous statements, etc.
We invite you to check out our message boards if you want a more typically fan-oriented environment. And we thank you for coming back to either the boards or the Radar — or both — again and again.
