For the third straight year, Mark Sanchez and his family will be hosting a collection of New York Jets offensive players for “Jets West” Camp. It has become a yearly tradition for Sanchez to gather his teammates in the weeks leading up training camp to review the offense, hold practices and spend roughly a week together. He organizes the whole thing, takes care of the scheduling and accommodations, along with extending invites to all the team’s skill position players.

Things like Jets West were part of the reason it was laughable when anonymous sources questioned Sanchez’s work ethic and leadership. Since day one of joining the team, Sanchez has reportedly been the first one in the building and the last one out. Recently, newly hired offensive coordinator noted that he has been the team’s hardest worker on offense and has mastered the offense in the classroom already.

Of course, the primary story being written about Jets West this year is that backup quarterback Tim Tebow will be in attendance. Why wouldn’t he be? Greg McElroy will be there and Tebow should be too. The narrative about Jets West Camp should be about Sanchez’s leadership, not Tebow’s attendance. Yet, in what should be an ongoing theme leading up to the regular season, Tebow is again being spotlighted over Sanchez.

This year’s camp will be a chance for Sanchez to further instruct his teammates on Sparano’s offense, which he began learning well before anybody else on the team when he went out of his way to train with Chad Pennington. Yes, the lazy Sanchez tracked Pennington down on his own and took multiple trips down to Florida to learn his new offense before OTAs began. His early knowledge will pay off in a situation like Jets West, where he could instruct his fellow skill position players and work towards developing chemistry with them.

Since the Jets season went down in flames, Sanchez has done all the right things. Hosting Jets West is just another one of them that will help pay dividends in September.

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