Winning puts Sanchez among top quarterbacks

FLORHAM PARK, N.J.

One of these guys is not like the others. One of these guys just doesn't belong.

That's the way it looks on paper, anyway. But Mark Sanchez is OK with that.

For one thing, the Jets quarterback said, the unprecedented, six-Super Bowl-ring string of quarterback counterparts in his path is not relevant to his current quest. "That kind of stuff is maybe something you will tell your grandkids about, that we were playing against a great quarterback," he said Wednesday of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger.

"But for now, these are wins for us, for the Jets . . . We all beat the Indianapolis Colts, not just Peyton Manning, and not just Tom Brady and the Patriots. We all beat them."

For another thing, Sanchez need not look further than the opposite sideline Sunday in Pittsburgh if he needs to be reassured quarterback experience is not as essential as it used to be in the playoffs.

Sanchez, 24, is 4-1 in five postseason games, all on the road, and has reached two AFC title games. That would have been far more noteworthy a few years ago, pre-Roethlisberger.

Big Ben is 9-2 in playoff starts and in the 2005 season became the youngest Lombardi Trophy-winning quarterback at age 23. He won another three years later.

But it was that first one that has been most compared to Sanchez's current run.

Among the similarities Roethlisberger noted were the fact Sanchez still is perceived as a caretaker for a team built on defense and rushing, even though that is much less true than it was last season. "He had a lot of what I did, too," Roethlisberger said, comparing his 2005 to Sanchez's 2009 and '10. "It's nice when they don't talk about you because they talk about your defense and how good they are. You can fly under the radar a little bit.

"With him being in New York, it's a little bit harder to do that. But I think every week you watch him and he's getting better. He takes the criticism everyone seems to give him for some reason and he seems to brush it off and move on and play better every week."

It is too soon to tell whether Sanchez ever will be regarded in the same stratosphere as Manning and Brady. Probably not. But he could do worse than modeling himself after Roethlisberger - the on-field version, that is, minus the off-field troubles.

Both are adept at buying time when plays break down and resourcefully salvaging them, even if Roethlisberger is far more likely to do so after watching a defender or two bounce off him.

Most of all, both have proved they know how to win. The seven quarterbacks ahead of Roethlisberger on the playoff victories list are current or surefire future Hall of Famers.

Sanchez already has tied the record for most career road playoff victories by a quarterback with four others, and has tied the combined career totals of Dan Marino and Brett Favre.

Historically none of it makes sense, but not as little sense as it would have in the 20th century. Stuff happens quickly in the modern NFL, and it is best not to think too deeply about it.

Sanchez tries not to by focusing on the small stuff. Wednesday he described how he stays comfortable on the road with rituals such as assembling his wardrobe just so the night before a game. "It sounds so cheesy, like it's the first day of school and you lay out your stuff," he said.

It also sounded fresh and innocent, coming from a guy who has struck just the right balance between understanding the magnitude of what he is doing and not being overwhelmed by it.

"He doesn't know the difference," coach Rex Ryan said. "He's just playing."