Inside The Bills

Bills prefer switch to Sanchez

Talking to the Bills in the locker room just moments after it was learned that Mark Sanchez is starting at quarterback instead of Greg McElroy, who revealed he was having concussion-like symptoms, the defenders in Buffalo’s locker room seemed to prefer Sanchez over Tebow.

“It makes it a little easier because there’s a lot more film on Mark Sanchez than there is on McElroy,” said Bryan Scott. “I don’t think they’re going to change too much offensively than they would have with Tebow. We’re still going to prepare for Tebow in case we see him some with the option type stuff.

“We’ve played against Sanchez multiple time so we’re all a bit more knowlegeable about his game and what he’ll likely do out there in certain situations.”

Sanchez had one of his best games this season against the Bills in Week 1 when he went 19-27 passing for 266 yards with 3 touchdowns and an INT with a 123.4 passer rating.

Jets switch to Sanchez as starter Sunday

After Rex Ryan announced on his conference call with the Buffalo media that he was going to start Greg McElroy at quarterback Sunday against the Bills, he had to reverse his course and announce he’s startin Mark Sanchez.

Ryan in his Thursday press conference said McElroy revealed to the medical staff that he was experiencing concussion-like symptoms after being sacked 11 times in last week’s loss to San Diego.

“Mark has had success earlier in the season against Buffalo,” Ryan said. “He’s very familiar with them. That’s the reason I’m going with Mark. I had the conversation with both Mark and Tim…. about what I was going to do. Obviously, Tim’s not happy with that. That’s what you expect.”

The New York Daily News is reporting that Ryan said the need to make a quick call on the change, prompted him to lean toward Sanchez, rather than Tebow with Ryan indicating with just Thursday and Friday practice before Sunday’s game that they might not be able to get Tebow up to speed in time rep-wise.

McElroy to start at QB for Jets

The Jets will have Greg McElroy start again this week at quarterback Sunday against the Bills.

Head coach Rex Ryan told the Buffalo media that this afternoon on his conference call.

“We’ll start Greg,” said Ryan. ”The type of beating he took last week, 11 sacks and things, he’s tougher than nails. We knew that about him. The previous year he’d be our clean-up guy in the preseason games and I’m not sure some of those guys could’ve blocked me. He definitely took a beating then and he took one unfortunately this past week. He is a tough guy. He’s smart.

“He is pretty good about knowing where to go with the football, but any time you have that kind of performance, unfortunately a lot of credit goes to your opponent, but there are also mistakes, clearly, that we made. Some of it was our guys getting beat, some were on protection, some were Greg’s fault for holding it too long or not being in the right spot. Others were depth of routes and things. There’s a lot of it to go around, that’s for sure.”

Bama QB pro day today

Greg McElroy, who injured the index finger on his throwing hand at the Senior Bowl in late January is only now well enough to perform for NFL scouts and will hold a personal pro day today (Tuesday).

Joining McElroy will be teammate TE Preston Dial. Dial also could not perform at the Alabama pro day on March 9th due to a sports hernia injury. South Alabama WR Courtney Smith will also be on hand working out in Tuscaloosa.

McElroy was on the South Team at the Senior Bowl, which was coached by Chan Gailey and his staff.

South QBs repping Texas

The South team roster at the Senior Bowl has three quarterbacks and all of them are from the state of Texas. Two of them even played high school ball in the same district, making for a rare camaraderie here in Mobile.

Florida St. QB Christian Ponder grew up in Colleyville, Texas just outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Alabama’s Greg McElroy played at Carroll high school in Grapevine, Texas and won a Class 5A state title as a first-year starter setting a state record with 56 touchdown passes that season. The team that McElroy and his Carroll team beat was Katy, whose quarterback was TCU’s Andy Dalton out of the Houston area.

“We’ve been around each other for a long time,” said Dalton. ”We all knew each other in high school. We went through recruiting and all that kind of stuff. It’s been fun to watch how each of us have grown up and learned how to play and now being back with one another.”

“It’s pretty cool and very unique,” said Ponder. ”Greg and I worked out together back in high school and we know Andy as well. We’ve all crossed paths at some point. So we’ve kept up with each other throughout our whole careers in college. For us to be here is pretty unique. We’re having fun with it. We’re friends, but at the same time we’re both very competitive in what we’re doing.”

The three signal callers could be heard from the sideline all ribbing each other’s game during the course of practices this week.

“We kind of knock on each other,” said Ponder. ”But we’re close friends.”

And though it may sound unusual to have three college QBs from Texas at one Senior Bowl, Ponder put the odds of that in the proper perspective.

“Our senior year the class of 2006 there were 26 quarterbacks signed to play Division I out of Texas,” he said. ”Texas is definitely the best high school football out there.”