The online video of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez dropping his shorts while dancing with two scantily clad women had barely gone viral Wednesday when the mocking jokes started flying.
And why not? Sanchez looked like he was celebrating more than just buying a couple cases of nice Cabernet in the 19-second clip, which was reportedly posted by one of the women as a chronicle of a trip she and some friends made to Napa.
Just like that, Sanchez's Butt Fumble total doubled from one to two -- and counting. And the Jets' stature as the laughingstock of the NFL just ticked up another notch. The same franchise that employs embattled head coach Rex Ryan -- a man who had to weather a foot-fetish video featuring his wife turning up on an online swinger's site a couple seasons ago -- now has a starting quarterback who, a month away from the start of a training camp in which he'll be fighting to keep his job, has people laughing hysterically and calling him Buttway Joe.
I feel great about the Jets' chances -- to lose 12, I mean. You too?
Sanchez can obviously do whatever he wants in his spare time. Before long, a friend or two may even come to his defense and say it isn't Sanchez's fault the video was -- don't laugh -- intercepted by, among others, Deadspin and TerezOwens.com.
But none of that will help him. On the ever-sliding scale of Guys that Dumb Stuff Just Keeps Happening To, Sanchez is now running slightly ahead of former USC teammate Matt Leinart, whose chicks-in-a-hot tub embarrassment proceeded his lapse into clipboard-carrying bust of an NFL quarterback. But not by much. (If the cratering of Leinart's career isn't a cautionary tale for Sanchez, it should be.)
Even Knicks free agent guard J.R. Smith knew better than to tweet a picture of his own butt when he put out a photo of a naked woman in his hotel room last year. That social media faux-pas got Smith fined. He went on to win the Sixth Man of the Year award this past season anyway.
And this latest incident won't submarine Sanchez's chances to resurrect his career, either. All it does his slide Sanchez's own butt into the discussion and (if there's a god in heaven) finally frees former Jets guard Brandon Moore, a class act, from being known mainly for the backside that Sanchez ran into on the original Butt Fumble play last season.
Beyond that, it's hard to see how looking dumber all the time helps Sanchez, just because there's an asterisk: he looks harmlessly dumb.
No NFL franchise wants a lightweight playing a heavyweight position like quarterback. But now, this is his new reality: The next time he lapses into his favorite expression, assuring everyone "I'm working my butt off," he's likely to be met with an audience of people trying hard not to burst out laughing.