Steve Serby
It has come to this for Mark Sanchez:
His chances of being the starting quarterback ever again for the New York Jets can best be described as a wing, and a wounded one at that, and a prayer.
Once the regular season starts Sunday against the Bucs with Geno Smith and without him, the depth chart will reveal him to be The Butttumbler.
The Grim Reaper stands over Sanchez now as the conspiracy theories gain new life about the inevitable death of his Jets career, fueled by the arrival yesterday of Brady Quinn.
That's all it takes these days, the signing of a journeyman former first-round bust who could conceivably serve as a preferable mentor for Smith — if for no other reason than he would not be perceived as a threat to him.
AP
QB MESS: Geno Smith appears poised to start Sunday's opener as Mark Sanchez (above) is left answering questions about his shoulder and journeyman Brady Quinn arrives for the start of his Jets career.
Sanchez stands grimly at his locker and repeats his "day-to-day" mantra, which more than ever now applies to his standing on general manager John Idzik's rebuilding team as well.
Only on the Jets could Sanchez win a quarterback competition with Geno Smith and then lose it to an unfathomable shoulder bruise that never should have happened.
Sanchez has a fan base that by and large can't wait to kick him to the curb, and a GM who drafted Smith in the second round and wants his future to be now, and a lame duck head coach who no longer loves him.
Sanchez, of course, made the bed he sleeps in with his reckless disregard for the football over these last two seasons, those ghastly 52 crimes against Jets Nation.
Sanchez knows his last chance to keep his starting job comes over these next 48 hours, during which time he might be desperate enough to call Tim Tebow and ask him to pray for a healing miracle. Fuggedaboudit.
The questions about Quinn joining Matt Simms as a backup, combined with his continued inability to practice, prompted a flurry of The Death of Sanchez questions for Rex Ryan:
Will Sanchez be here? Is it possible he could wind up on injured reserve?
"We'll look at all those factors as we move forward," Ryan said. "But, again, looking into it more than what it is, it was just an opportunity for us to, as we feel, get a good football player, and that's kind of where we are with it."
Is IR a consideration?
"That's not what we're looking at right now," Ryan said.
And: "If we felt as an organization that he should be placed on IR, then Mark would have been placed on IR."
"Could things change? Absolutely things can change. ... We said that he's day-to-day. That's a long way from saying he's going on IR."
Can you say with certainty that when he is healthy and he is cleared to play, he will be an active member of this team?
"Again, there's a lot of factors that go into all those type of things," Ryan said, "but if Mark's healthy, then yes, I would say he would be, to finish your thing, of part of this football team, I guess what you said."
It is entirely possible, of course, that there very well will be a great debate behind the green door as to the merits of placing Sanchez on season-ending IR if the shoulder is more problematic than the Kremlin Jets are letting on.
If the organization has reached a philosophical consensus Smith will be handed the keys to the kingdom with no turning back whenever Sanchez is capable of throwing again, then placing Sanchez on IR and removing the possibility of a divided locker room once Smith begins struggling would make a modicum of sense.
Sanchez still has his supporters in the Jets locker room, and should, because he won the quarterback competition by default, or should have, until Ryan instructed him to go get that Snoopy Trophy in garbage time against the Giants.
Removing him from the equation might, in the eyes of some, alleviate stress on Smith. Quinn has his own baggage, but he doesn't need a cargo plane to unload it, and it isn't New York/Jets baggage.
So it makes sense in that way.
But it doesn't make sense in this way: What if Smith were to get hurt?
Sanchez, for better or worse, has mastered Marty Mornhinweg's system. He would give the Jets a better chance to win than Quinn or Simms.
And more than anything, it simply doesn't make cents for the Jets to simply cut off his right arm to spite their face — $8.25 million guaranteed, and a prohibitive $12.8 million cap charge — whether he's on the team or off.
Sanchez was asked: Are you concerned that you are losing, or have lost, your starting job, because of injury?
"No, not really," Sanchez said. "I just got to come back as soon as possible, and keep rehabbing."
Do you feel like you're in limbo though?
"Not really. I feel like I'm rehabbing."
Sadly, whatever the buttfumbling football gods ultimately decide, this much we know: His once-promising career needs rehabbing, be it here, or somewhere else.
steve.serby@nypost.com
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