If you haven't heard by now, after Sunday's season-killing loss to the Jaguars, in a game that we described at SportingNews.com as the first playoff game of quarterback Mark Sanchez's career, Sanchez showed up for the post-game press availability with a speech.

A speech! Exactly when did he write the speech? We know the guy eats hotdogs while he's on the sideline during games, does he do speech writing too? Did he have two speeches already prepared; one if the Jets won, and on if they lost? Could he have possibly written it in the 15 minutes he was in the locker room before he went to talk with the press?

Did he think he was campaigning for something? (Perhaps he is starting to think he has to campaign for his job.)

Here's what he said:

"I've got a couple of things to say real quick.  You guys will probably have some questions after.  This should hit on everything.  [There] are just some things I'm thinking here real quick.  We'll change it up.  OK?

First play of the game, [I had an] early mistake.  It can't happen.  It put our offense in a tough spot.  [It was] a great read.  J-Co [Jerricho Cotchery] runs an awesome route and it's just a physical mistake and underthrown ball.  The best part about it, the mental side of it, I battled back all game.

[I] played smarter the rest of the game [and I am] proud of my effort.  Second thing [with] the interception, the defensive end makes a pretty good play.  The guy got up there and just spooked me off the edge there and made a great play.  In the big scheme of things, it didn't hurt us.  We got the ball back.  Our defense played their tail off and got us the ball.

The last drive of the game [was] just unbelievable effort.  The offensive line [did a great job].  I've got some guys written down here:  [David] Clowney, J-Co [Jerricho Cotchery], and Dustin [Keller], Braylon [Edwards].  Those third-down conversions were unbelievable.  [It was] a great effort.

Clowney comes in and makes one huge catch.  It changes the course of the game and keeps our drive alive.  Then, the O-line [was] giving you tons of time on that drive. At the end of that drive, we scored.   T.J. [Thomas Jones] punches it in.  [With] the two-point conversion, I've got to put it on Braylon sooner.  He makes a good effort going after the ball, but that ball has got to be there sooner so nobody can knock it out of his hands.

The bottom line to this whole thing, to this entire game, to our entire season is find a way to find a way.  Coach [Ryan] challenged us already.  We've got to find a way to win some games.  Right now we're finding ways to lose, but we're in a position right now to sink or swim.  I know we've got a lot of fight in us.  We've got some great veteran leaders and they've been in spots like this before, so we're going to call on their leadership [and] call on our coaching.  Great job today too from Schotty [Brian Schottenheimer] and Cav [Matt Cavanaugh].  [They had] just unbelievable play-calling in that last drive, so [it's] sink or swim [and] find a way to find a way."

Of course, Sanchez still faced questions after giving his speech.  And the first question was, well, why give a speech?

"It just hit me after this game the way our season is going [and] the message that we want to send, that's the bottom line to us.  That's what Rex [Ryan] said to us.  He said, 'It's sink or swim.'  This is it.  It's up or down, win or lose or whatever you want to call it.  We're in a position right now where we need to win some games and win a lot in a row."

I haven't seen anyone have a take on actually why he gave the speech, but I have a theory.

I think he was nervous. He was obviously nervous before the game (look at the picture).  He under threw Jericho Cotchery on the first play of the game which would have been a sure touchdown (instead it was intercepted). He was probably just nervous having to speak to the media after the game.... - Brain James

Brain James is an independent sports journalist. Brian has been covering major professional sports for over 25 years.

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