Friday, August 11, 2006

Pennington Giving It All One More Time

As a Jets fan, it's hard not to root for Chad Pennington. Maybe part of my sports brain is stuck in 2002, when Pennington broke onto the scene and emerged as the NFL leader in quarterback efficiency rating, or maybe it's stuck in 2004, when the Marshall grad fought through a fraying right shoulder to lead the Jets within a field goal of the AFC championship game. Whatever the case, I like Chad, and probably always will. He's one of those players who doesn't blow you away with his physical tools so much as he just gets it done with his aptitude for the game, his decision-making, his precision soft touch and, most of all, his leadership. Additionally, he's always handled himself with class in front of the fans and (almost always) in dealing with the media.

Alas, the injury bug has never been kind to Chad. It started with the broken left wrist suffered in a 2003 preseason game against the Giants, got worse when he tore his right rotator cuff in a mid-season game against the Bills in 2004, then got plain ridiculous when he tore the same right shoulder in week three against the Jaguars in 2005. Here's the sad, plain truth: Chad Pennington, the face of the Jets franchise for the past four years, has never played an entire sixteen game schedule. And this past offseason it looked like Pennington wouldn't have another chance to get it done with the Jets: his eleven million dollar salary cap hit had to be restructured for New York to fit it in. The only way to get that done was for Chad to agree to take a pay cut in 2006, something most professional athletes wouldn't even consider. Yet, sure enough, Pennington took an eight million dollar pay cut to come back to the Jets.

You see, Chad Pennington wants to be the starting quarterback for the Jets. He wants to live up to the "face of the franchise" billing he's gotten since bursting onto the scene in 2002. He continues to talk about bringing the Big Apple another professional football championship and returning the Jets' franchise to the top of the heap. Despite all of the injuries and all of the doubters, Chad Pennington continues to believe. And as a diehard fan of Gang Green, you should already know that I continue to believe as well.

Will the Jets make the playoffs this year? No. Will they finish with a winning record? Probably not. But if Chad Pennington can stay healthy for a full year---a humongous if given his history---if he can stay on the field and serve as a leader under center for Eric Mangini's in-progress club, the Jets will be able to call 2006 a success. In all truth, with Patrick Ramsey as the only other ready-to-go starting quarterback option on the roster, the Jets have no choice but to hope for a gutsy bounce-back from Pennington.

I'm pulling for him too. Emotionally, it's not like I really even have a choice anymore. That #10 jersey is still hanging in the closet, a little faded from all the dust and all the time off, but still in there somewhere towards the front. Now please, Chad, please just stay healthy. . . .


-JAB

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