Chad Pennington, We Hardly Know Thee?

See Link in Title for a little mo' about Chad (and I'm not talkin' about elections in Florida!)

You went to Marshall right? I never saw you play college ball, alright. I apologize. Well, at least they wear green.

And in your first full season you played 12 games right? You led the Jets back from a 1-3 start that had Gang Green fans perched on their window cills prepared to jump. You replaced a "popular guy" QB who was more the "Broadway" type to your backwoods heritage. All the while you dealt with your father in law's illness and the fact that you were newly wed to young woman. Young brides tend to be as demanding as...as...well, as Jet fans on the brink. But you made it to the playoffs and crushed the Colts in the opening game...then took a beating of your own against the hated Raiders.

That's pretty much the extent of what I know about you though as your golden boy start seemingly turned injury plagued...hurt in a loss to the Giants in the 2003 preseason, you returned to a team (a bad 6-10 team) and had a decent QB rating despite being picked off too much...In 2004 you were bad (despite having a good QB rating...with to many picks), you whined about the media giving you a hard time (the first time they ever did) but the team was good and made the playoffs...and went deep until Doug Brien couldn't kick when it mattered (which took some heat off you). And finally we get to last season, hurt again, the team was bad and I kind of stopped caring if you were ever going to QB again.

Who are you Chad? Are you the guy who grabbed the reigns with vigor in your first year? Or are you the injury plagued quarter back who seemingly keeps his stats padded with efficient but short passes? Are you going to stop throwing so many interceptions?

This team is not good. You have been good at times and the only way this team can be good...hell, I'll even take adequate instead of being a laughing stock...is if you dig deep and find some of that old magic.

Who are you?

(See Pole in Sidebar)