Rex Ryan liked both Freeman and Sanchez in 2009.

A very interesting little tidbit was in this morning’s MMQB column by Peter King. It seems while talking to Rex Ryan about his upcoming book and after taking a couple swipes at the Ravens, the topic of the 2009 NFL Draft arose.

Ryan tells an interesting story in the book about pursuing a franchise quarterback once he got the Jets job. The choice came down to USC’s Mark Sanchez and Kansas State’s Josh Freeman. “We sent both of them a mini-playbook and asked them to learn what they could from it before they met with us,” Ryan told me. “They both blew the doors off us when we got them in a room. We’d ask about out formations and bam-bam-bam, they knew it all quick. Both very, very sharp guys.”

But in telling the story in the book, Ryan says one of the factors that swayed the Jets was how Sanchez was regarded by his peers. He said 24 high school and college mates showed up to catch balls for Sanchez. When they’d been to Kansas State to work out Freeman, two of his receivers showed up. “Honestly,” Ryan told me, “that might have been what separated them — the immense respect we sensed from the people who played with Mark and knew him so well.”

So let me get this straight, because more guys showed up to catch Mark Sanchez’s passes at his pro-day, that is what put him over the top? Ignoring the fact a lot more guys are hanging around Los Angeles than Manhattan, Kansas that may be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Now, granted the Jets aren’t complaining having gone to two straight AFC Championship games with Sanchez, but by the same token Freeman had a MUCH better season last year without nearly the same talent around him. You put Freeman on the Jets and they go just as far, if not further. Put Sanchez on the Bucs and they’d have just picked top ten again last weekend.

Whether or not Rex Ryan saw it, Josh Freeman is about as beloved by his teammates as any player in recent memory on the Bucs, or in the NFL for that matter. Just listen to the way his coaches and teammates talk about him.  The Bucs are unquestionably his team. Personally, I think the better QB wound up in Tampa, so thank you Rex.

The 2009 QB Class still looks promising.

Today is the final installment of our QB Forum. For the past two days (starting Friday) we’ve been analyzing the quarterback class of 2009 and comparing the three young guns selected in the first round of that year’s draft. Zac Snyder of SideLion Report and Marc Greenberg of The Jet Press (both FanSided blogs) and I look to the future in the final segment of our forum. We look at who has the brightest NFL future based on their first two seasons as well as who has been the best value up to this point. It probably gets trite listening to me talk about how good Josh Freeman is, so it’s not listening to a couple of non-aligned bloggers admit as much.

Who has the brightest future?

Zac Synder (Lions)

This is a really hard question to answer considering there are so many unanswered questions with Matthew Stafford. Those that haven’t watched him much might be quick to dismiss him in this case but he was drafted number one overall for a reason. We’ve seen flashes of it in Detroit but there is certainly no guarantee that he will stay healthy enough for his start to shine to its potential. Josh Freeman is my safe pick and Matthew Stafford is my pick on the condition that his injury problems are a thing of the past.

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Chances are neither of these guys would be good on the Bucs.

We started our quarterback forum yesterday afternoon when we posted part one of our round-table on the QB Class of 2009. Bloggers Zac Snyder from SideLion Report and Marc Greenberg of The Jet Press discussed how all three quarterbacks would fare in the other teams’ offenses with me in part two of our series. You can check out part three tomorrow when we get into projections for the future.

How would your guy fare on the other two teams?

Zac Snyder (Lions)

Unfortunately, I can’t say that Stafford would fare any differently on the Bucs or Jets. His injuries haven’t necessarily been due to poor play along the offensive line so there is no reason to expect he wouldn’t have suffered them in a different environment.

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