FanHouse NewYorkJets

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. -- Ted Cottrell hasn't gotten off to a good start with the New York Sentinels, who have lost their first four games to start the UFL's inaugural campaign.

Cottrell, though, is relishing the opportunity to be a head coach, a position that he had been passed over for numerous times despite his lengthy resume. He has been a defensive assistant in college, the USFL and the NFL since breaking in as a defensive line coach at Rutgers in 1973.

Last Wednesday, Cottrell's club suffered a 41-10 defeat at the hands of the Las Vegas Locomotives. It was the second home game for the Sentinels, who hosted the Locos at Hofstra's James M. Shuart Stadium, where the game was moved after it was originally scheduled for Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets.

You think being 0-2 scares Jeff Fisher? No chance. He's been 0-2 before. Heck, in 2006 his Tennessee Titans were 0-5 before finishing with a flurry that got them back to 8-8 and the fringes of the AFC playoff race.

"That was one of my favorite teams," Fisher said on a conference call earlier this week. "I've never been around a better locker room than that 0-5 team, because they believed in themselves and what they were doing. The key is, you just sell that belief."

That's what Fisher is selling this week, as his tough-luck Titans head to the Meadowlands to face the fast-starting, trash-talking Jets and the very real prospect of being 0-3. The good thing for Tennessee is that there's probably no salesman in the NFL better equipped for the job.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- This is how Jets receiver Jerricho Cotchery knows his quarterback is an overgrown child. On the first play of the second half Sunday against the Patriots, Mark Sanchez hit Cotchery with a 45-yard pass down the right sideline. When Cotchery got up at the end of the play -- a 45-yard pass play, remember -- Sanchez was standing right there in front of him, screaming in Cotchery's face and whacking his helmet in celebration.

And it's not the first time that's happened.

"When you catch a long pass 30, 40 yards down the field, you're not used to seeing your quarterback right there in your face when you get up," Cotchery said Monday. "I'm like, 'What happened? Did you throw it and start running after it right away?' "

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- David Carr has been where Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford are -- sort of. He knows what it feels like to be a high draft pick with huge expectations who's named a starting quarterback in the NFL right out of college. A 16-game starter on the 2002 expansion Houston Texans, Carr got to experience first-hand what Sanchez and Stafford will start experiencing for real this weekend. And it's not that he's trying to scare anybody, but ...

"If I had it to do all over again, I think I would have rather watched," Carr, now the Giants' backup QB, told FanHouse on Monday. "There were just so many bad habits I picked up that, if I'd seen another guy doing it, I don't think I would have."

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Jets coach Rex Ryan has informed Mark Sanchez and Kellen Clemens that Sanchez has won the starting quarterback job, FanHouse has confirmed. A source said Ryan gave the news to the two candidates this morning, as first reported by Jay Glazer on FOXSports.com. Ryan's daily press conference is scheduled for 2 PM ET, after the Jets practice today in Florham Park, N.J., and he's likely to make his decision public at that time.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- That first throw didn't go quite as smoothly for Mark Sanchez as it may have looked. That the Jets' rookie quarterback electrified the small preseason crowd at Giants Stadium with a 48-yard strike to David Clowney on the first professional pass of his career was the story of the night, but as cool as he appeared, there was more going on than you may have realized if you were watching on TV.

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Not to pick on poor Calvin Pace, who claims today to be the latest NFL victim of those sneaky, nefarious over-the-counter supplements, but come on here, people. At what point is it fair to start calling out the NFL on the performance-enhancing drug issue? This guy's no superstar, but he's an important player on a New York team. The baseball equivalent would be somebody like Ryan Church on the Mets or Hideki Matsui on the Yankees. Imagine if one of those guys had been suspended today for steroids? Would ESPN even think about leading SportsCenter with anything else?

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FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- The New York Jets announced Wednesday afternoon that they have reached agreement on the terms of a contract with quarterback Mark Sanchez, their first-round pick from this year's draft.

The Jets did not release terms of the contract, but a person close to the situation confirmed to FanHouse that it's a five-year deal that includes about $28 million in guaranteed money and could be worth as much as $60 million total if Sanchez meets all of his incentives.

Sanchez's contract isn't close to the $41.7 million guaranteed that the No. 1 overall pick, former Georgia QB Matthew Stafford, got from the Lions. Nor does it match the $34.75 million guaranteed that last year's No. 3 overall pick, former Boston College QB Matt Ryan, got from the Falcons. But the deal for Sanchez (who was No. 5 overall this year) is sure to renew calls from the NFL and its owners for a rookie wage scale.

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FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- There are so many things a rookie quarterback -- even one as hyped as Mark Sanchez -- can do better. He can be more accurate, less nervous, a quicker learner...any number of things.

Sanchez's coach wants him to be louder.

Jets coach Rex Ryan said Tuesday that one of the things Sanchez needs to work on in his preseason competition with Kellen Clemens for the team's starting quarterback job is his voice -- specifically the way in which he uses it to try and draw defenses offsides. Sanchez said today he was getting the message, and getting better.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- Look, the NFL offseason is freaking boring. I know, I know, if you're reading this, you're a die-hard and you can't get enough NFL news, even in June. But the fact is there's little-to-nothing going on this time of year. Which is why you've got to love Jets coach Rex Ryan and Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder for spicing things up the way they have the past couple of days.

Ryan and Crowder have been hooked up in a little war of words for the past week. And their dispute, rooted in Ryan's tough talk about not being intimidated by anybody else in the AFC East and Crowder's hurt feelings on behalf of a division-champion team that he feels isn't being given enough credit for its 2008 accomplishment, continued today.