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Jets center Nick Mangold: Players want Mark Sanchez to win quarterback competition

Jets players reportedly want Mark Sanchez to be the starter when the season opens. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

Jets players reportedly want Mark Sanchez to be the starter. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

When it comes to the New York Jets quarterback competition, center Nick Mangold thinks that Mark Sanchez should emerge as the Week 1 starter.

Even though the team drafted Geno Smith in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft, Mangold says that the rest of the team wants Sanchez to be the starter as well.

Sanchez ended last season on shaky ground, even being benched in December. He committed 26 turnovers in 15 games in 2012 and has a career completion rate of 55.1 percent. The team has missed the playoffs in each of the past two seasons.

“I believe so,” Mangold said to the New York Post when asked if the rest of the locker room hopes Sanchez wins the job. “I haven’t walked around with a pen and paper and taken a poll, but from the feeling I get, the locker room wants to win. Whoever gives us the best chance to do that, we want out there -- and at this point, Mark gives us that best chance.” “I think Mark is a fantastic quarterback for us, and I think he can do some good things,” Mangold said. “He showed some good flashes in the spring, getting [new offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg’s] system down and commanding the offense way that he should be. We’ll see how training camp plays out, but either way, the competition will make him a better player.”