FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Rex Ryan ended the fake suspense early Wednesday morning, calling Mark Sanchez and Kellen Clemens into the coach’s office out here to tell them that the quarterback who had the $50-million deal, the GQ photo shoot and the slightly less awful performance on Monday night in Baltimore was the Jets’ starter for 2009.

“It’s a gut feeling I have,” Ryan said. “I think Mark gives us the best chance to win right now.”
Leaving aside the jokes about Coach Rex and his gut . . . He’s right. Sanchez does give the Jets the best chance to win right now, because he’s got his teammates believing in him. The rookie has a sort of infectious confidence — “cocky but not arrogant,” is the way one Jet described Sanchez the other day.
Ryan is confident, too. He believes not only in his first-round draft pick, but in his football team, perhaps more so in the team than the QB.
“I know what our defense will be,” Ryan said. “I know what our running game will be. This is a good football team. We have a good football team here.”
Now, this is where the coach and the writer disagree. Ryan has some weapons on defense. He has some weapons in the run game. But they do not necessarily add up to the 2008 Ravens, which is Ryan’s ideal scenario for the 2009 Jets.
He’s referred often to last year’s Baltimore team, which had a first-year head coach and a rookie quarterback and relied on a terrific run game and one of the NFL’s best defenses (run by Ryan) to reach the AFC Championship game.
That team won at times in spite of Joe Flacco, who began last season with one touchdown pass and seven interceptions in his first five games. He learned how to manage the game — that awfully boring phrase that translates into wins for young QBs like Flacco and Eli Manning — and the Ravens’ fearsome ’D’ did almost all the rest.
If only the Jets’ defense could be as good as the Ravens’ was last year. Or this year — Baltimore pulled out all the stops for Ryan’s return on Monday, throwing a few complex fronts at Sanchez and showing that even without Ryan, the Ravens’ defense is still king.
The Jets do have Leon Washington, a weapon that neither the Ravens nor any other team else has. And unlike Eric Mangini, who used Washington so sparingly it was like the little speedster was on double secret probation, Ryan knows what he has in No. 29.
So Sanchez won’t be asked to do too much. Great. That’s how it should go for a rookie.
But he might have to do more than expected, with an offense that flourished and withered with Brett Favre slinging the ball around last year. If the offensive line can keep Sanchez protected and fresh, he could do some damage in the air — provided there’s some consistency from the mediocre receiving corps.
Flacco stepped into an offense that had two solid receivers in Mark Clayton and Derrick Mason, three legit running backs and an offensive line that had been together for a few years.
Plus that defense.
The Jets have Coach Rex, the architect, and a lot of question marks. At least the quarterback situation is resolved. Mark Sanchez is the man, as everyone thought all along. If he can manage the game as well as Flacco learned to, he’ll be all right.
Too bad the Jets don’t have anything else from the 2008 Ravens, save Ryan, to make Sanchez into the next Flacco.