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I had an interesting email exchange backstage with colleague Brian Bassett of TheJetsBlog.com.

Wrote Bassett: "Like the wildcat is currently chic, so too is playing rookie QBs. People forget that it wasn't that long ago that David Carr, Vince Young and Alex Smith also all played as rookies and things didn't go so well for them longer term. Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco came along, and now it's what the all teams in the league should do."

Later he added, "Sanchez has thrown 10 interceptions so far. Flacco threw 12 all year (as a rookie). Ryan threw 11. ... Not awesome."

Nope, it's not. As a quarterback-obsessed person my entire football-watching life, I've studied the position from all angles. But this career progression by Sanchez so far is something I never would have predicted.

I accepted that the bad games were inevitable for Sanchez, but Sunday's prototypical rookie disaster against an injury-depleted Bills defense was a shock. The Saints game was different -- against a good team in a tough road environment and the game gets away from you even though you show your good qualities at various stages throughout. Sanchez looked terrible Sunday pretty much from start to finish.

Should Sanchez be benched? I've been an advocate of "you can only learn by playing." But recent research on mirror neurons gives solid backing to those who think a rookie quarterback should sit and learn for a year. As the studies show we primates aren't really sitting when watching someone do what we are striving to do. We are practicing -- the brain fires the same way as if we were actually doing the physical movements. It's our evolutionary way of ramping up the learning curve for all physical actions.

But, as I replied to Brian, I don't think the problem with Sanchez is playing mechanics. It's learning to deal with the psychological adversity of failure, from play to play and game to game. Sanchez proved that he can rebound from a bad game and recover enough to be an asset when he played better in Miami after the debacle in New Orleans. But he clearly hasn't mastered the tougher task of dealing with in-game adversity.

The first step is stopping the bleeding. He seems miles away from that, never mind that next step, the one that makes you great: being capable of reversing course and playing well in the same game after you've played poorly.

Science says stress is a killer here. We just can't perform when feeling it. And how can you not feel it when you've thrown one bad pick, and then another and another?

So Sanchez should just chill, right? This is why he's been criticized for "being too emotional," "caring too much" and "being on the verge of tears."

Most of us believe emotions interfere with decision-making. Blame this on Mr. Spock. But the opposite is true. Without visceral emotions, we're hopelessly indecisive. Someone who has suffered damage to this area of the brain will seem perfectly normal at lunch until you watch them try to decide whether to eat meat or fish. You'll be there for hours if you don't take the reins yourself.

Sanchez needs his emotions. He needs to mentally connect that sickening, death-like feeling (that fans should hope lingered for days) to covered wide receivers. He needs to feel about open ones like he does when he is eying a beautiful blonde at the bar. This has to all be done at the subconscious level as evolution devised. It cannot be done rationally. As Peyton Manning once told me, "In the NFL, there's no time to think."

So how do you care deeply enough without being stressed when things go south on a particular play or quarter or half of a game? No one knows. The NFL puts "decision making" under "intangibles." Whether a guy in college has started 16 games or 40 doesn't matter, either. You can only learn to adapt to NFL stress in the NFL.

Forget about the overall numbers. Sanchez has looked good in three games, decent in one, bad in another and hideous last week. Check out Manning's rookie game logs. He had 11 picks his first four starts and never less than two. Joe Flacco last year was 2-3 and had seven picks and one TD pass during that early stretch.

I still think Sanchez is going to be very good. But my sense is that this is going to take longer than we all hoped.

Bassett agrees, in part, "I like Mark Sanchez a lot, I really do, and I do think that he's shown some incredible abilities so far this season. Up until Sunday, I was never concerned about his mental/emotional makeup to play quarterback for the Jets."

As he added, ominously, "We're on the edge of a knife here." Yes, we are.

Prediction time: Everything you could possibly want to know about each team on offense and defense can be found here and here.

We're back to August, where this year is about developing a defensive identity along with a championship-level quarterback. If the team makes the playoffs, great. But the Jets have unveiled a championship blueprint for the first time really since 1965.

Of major significance is the loss of nose tackle Kris Jenkins for the year. He was the one Jet capable of beating double teams. Heck, the other guys on the front seven can't even beat their blocker one-on-one.

The Raiders are terrible. JaMarcus Russell doesn't care enough to ever be good, never mind great. Talent -- raw ability to throw a football -- is so overrated at this position.

You should root for something to go bad for Sanchez early -- another pick or a fumble. Then we have a better test. If he plays competently start to finish, as I suspect given the tighter reins, big deal. We've learned nothing, and neither has he. But that's the way this game is going to play out. Expect a snoozer. Jets 17, Raiders 7.