Within the span of three weeks, the Redskins have seen two quarterbacks go down with broken legs and are left for the final four games of the season with a quarterback depth chart that reads as follows:

Mark Sanchez

Josh Johnson

But the facts remain. Despite sitting at 6-6, Washington is only a game back in the NFC East race and a half-game back in the NFC Wild Card race. If they’re going to make a playoff push, the veteran Sanchez will have to be the one under center who guides them there.

Can it be done? According to NBC Sports Washington Redskins analyst Brian Mitchell, it’s less about Sanchez himself and more about what’s around him.

“Mark Sanchez, he typifies exactly what I said about quarterbacks. They're the most dependent position in all of sports,” Mitchell said Thursday on Redskins 100. “He's going to need the running game to be damn good. The defense is going to have to get back to what they were, stopping the run and giving them more opportunities with turnovers or they’re not winning the football game.

“So, yes, they can win with him, but the people around him are going to have to be up there. They can’t play average. They can’t play like they’ve been playing.”

How they’ve “been playing” is all part of a three-game losing streak that has featured that quarterback carousel, a slew of other injuries and a defense that has not played up to the level it had been earlier in the year.

Sanchez now takes the wheel as a starter for the first time since 2015 when he started for Philadelphia in place of an injured Sam Bradford. The Eagles went 0-2 in those games.

On Monday night, Sanchez played decently well in the first half. The road got rockier in the second half and he finished 13-of-21 for 100 yards and had one pass intercepted in relief of Colt McCoy.

The question is if he’ll be able to at least manage the game and give Washington an opportunity to get a much-needed win over the suddenly rejuvenated Giants on Sunday, winners of three of their last four games.

Brian Mitchell is joined on "Redskins Kickoff Live" by Julie Donaldson, Trevor Matich, and DeAngelo Hall one hour before every Redskins game on NBC Sports Washington. This week’s coverage begins Sunday at noon, also streaming on the brand new MyTeams app.

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