Rex Ryan's Position on Picking Mark Sanchez or Tim Tebow New York Jets Quarterback Still Up In The Air

These days, there isn't much to smile about these days if you're a New York Jets fan.

Coming off a 6-10 season and missing the playoffs for the second year in a row, Jets head coach Rex Ryan has a lot to try and right on the Jets' ship.

At the top of the list is the one burning question in the minds of Jets fans--Who is going to be the starting quarterback in the 2013 season, Mark Sanchez or Tim Tebow?

"Well, currently, and as you look at everything, Tim is under contract to be a New York Jet and so we'll see how things go in the off season," Ryan said. "But Tim is under contract."

So far, the only thing that can be derived from Ryan's statements is that Tebow is still under contract. But as far as who would be the man to start at the QB position, Ryan was fairly vague.

Jets general manager John Idzik didn't give any hints, either, only pointing to the team improving as a whole as they look to rebound from their second straight losing season.

"I think everyone, Mark included, that he, our offense, our team as a whole needs to perform better than we did in 2012," Idzik said.

"We're going to increase the competition so that he plays better," Idzik said. "We've got a new offensive coordinator, a new quarterback coach. That will be healthy."

Sanchez will have a lot to improve on. This past season, Sanchez threw for 2,883 yards and 13 touchdowns, but threw 18 interceptions--five more than his touchdown numbers--and completed only 54.3 percent of his passes for a 66.9 QB rating.

With $8.25 million of his contract guaranteed this year, the Jets are going to have to make due and hope that Sanchez can regain the form he had in the 2009 and 2010 seasons when the led the Jets to back-to-back appearances in the AFC Championship game.

But Ryan stopped short of guaranteeing that Sanchez would be his starting quarterback for this coming season, saying, "No. 1, you heard about what John talked about, the competition. Bringing in competition at every position, not just the quarterback position. ... That is what we want to do. So to say Mark Sanchez or this quarterback or that quarterback, I think there's clearly going to be competition."