Dawn Kotowski’s title is general manager of a Taco Bell, but last month she orchestrated one of the summer’s most successful bang-for-the-buck athlete endorsement campaigns.

Her restaurant is just a few minutes from the SUNY-Cortland campus in upstate New York where the Jets held training camp. Jets second-year quarterback Mark Sanchez frequently visited the restaurant for a chicken taco and chicken burrito, hold the tomatoes. Sanchez developed his fondness for Taco Bell growing up in Mission Viejo, Calif., minutes from the company’s headquarters.

– David Broughton, Sports Business Journal.

Oh, Mark Sanchez, you magnificent bastard, what will you do next? Not only did he “frequently visit” the restaurant, but he also eschews the tomatoes at Taco Bell — just like I do!

Nevermind that Sanchez favors chicken items and I’m a ground-beef guy.

The SBJ article goes on to detail how Kotowski provided Sanchez the much-discussed Taco Bell hat seen on Hard Knocks hoping for just such exposure, racking up an estimated $68,000 worth of advertising for Taco Bell, and how she was recognized by the company for “thinking outside the bun.”

OMG OMG OMG OMG Mark Sanchez!

Also, the big takeaway here is that all you need to do to get a free Taco Bell hat is be a talented, handsome professional quarterback playing for the team being showcased on Hard Knocks. So I guess I’ll have to get to work on that.

Taco Bell hat! Mark Sanchez!

Massive hat tip to Mike Rudner for the link.

It did not bode well for the Jets when the Bengals beat the Ravens in the early game Sunday and held them to ten points. After all, one of the few positive takeaways from Gang Green’s Monday Night debacle was that Rex Ryan’s defense held Joe Flacco and the newly high-flying Ravens offense in check. If the Bengals, a team that yielded 38 points to the Patriots in Week 1, could stop the Ravens so effectively, clearly the feat is not so impressive. Plus, since the Patriots beat the Bengals, the Bengals beat the Ravens and the Ravens beat the Jets, then by the transitive property…

Luckily, that logic doesn’t hold in the NFL. The Jets, despite a slow start and the loss of Darrelle Revis late in the first half, beat the Patriots, wiped the smug look off Tom Brady’s stupid face, and restored confidence that they might, for once, match the hype.

How’d they do all that? Well, last week’s goat Antonio Cromartie redeemed himself. The defense adapted to and ultimately stifled Brady and the Patriots’ offense. Some of the new, old guys — LaDainian Tomlinson and Jason Taylor — showed why Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum thought they had enough left to bring ’em to Jersey. And our hero Mark Sanchez played the game of his life.

Sanchez got help from pretty solid line play, much more aggressive play calling, and a run game that gave him breathing room to spread the ball around the field. But he made plenty of plays on his own, too, improvising, eluding defenders with his feet, checking down to the open receiver, looking like a calm, cool veteran and not the gun-shy rookie he resembled just six days ago.

The Sanchise threw touchdowns to three different receivers and finished 21-for-30 with 220 yards and no interceptions. Entering the game it was clear the Patriots’ secondary was their weak spot, but Sanchez exploited it with particular aplomb. The performance should be plenty to quiet the maybe-never set that emerged earlier this week ready to write off Sanchez’s career.

Perhaps the future… IS NOW!

Ultimately, I should note, one game means little in the scope of the 16-game schedule, regardless of the quality of the opponent. And depending on the extent of Revis’ injury, this could be something of a Pyrrhic victory for Gang Green.

But it was an awesome and exciting one regardless, and a convenient excuse to post a picture of Mark Sanchez with a mustache and ridiculous 3-D glasses.

The Jets have put the fear of making a mistake in the forefront of Mark Sanchez’s mind. That much is clear. He’s all hesitancy and doubt. He threw only one pass downfield against the Ravens, or at least one deep pass with serious intent. Flinging one up 10 yards away from a receiver does not count. That’s a throwaway.

Now the Patriots come to town, and they can set the Jets reeling. Don’t think they are not relishing that chance. Tom Brady is dangerous, and the Jets have some problems in the non-Darrelle Revis part of their defense. They even have problems in the Revis part now that their star corner is battling a tender hamstring — one that may been caused by his missing all of camp. The best player on the first level of their defense — defensive tackle Kris Jenkins — is gone. And the injured Calvin Pace may be the best player on the second level. He’s least the most versatile.

– Michael Salfino, SNY.tv.

I watched half of the Patriots’ evisceration of the Bengals on Sunday before I got disgusted with Cincy and switched over to something more compelling, but it was enough to convince me that the Patriots are once again, sadly enough, extremely good at football.

It’s a very small sample, mind you, but they appeared to be moving the ball at will on the Bengals’ defense and they completely neutralized Cedric Benson and the Cincinnati running game. The only place they looked weak was in the secondary, especially at the corners.

Again, it’s only one game. But it strikes me that there’s a pretty solid chance the Jets could be 0-2 after Sunday, and the reactive New York media will explode, even though Gang Green will have lost only to two reasonable Super Bowl contenders. If the Jets played like they played Monday and the Patriots play like they played Sunday, that’s exactly what’ll happen.

Luckily, a lot can change in a week. If the Jets can move the ball better on offense, they’ll secure more first downs, give their defense longer breaks and keep Tom Brady and his stupid hair off the field.

But based on what the Patriots did to the Bengals’ rushing game, it seems like a safe bet that the Jets will have to pass downfield to do that, if only to stretch the defense. That means a lot should fall on our hero, upon whom much doubt has been cast of late.

Phone call for you, Mark Sanchez. It’s destiny again.

This split doesn’t really do it justice because there aren’t a lot of great pictures of Danny Woodhead without his helmet available online, but as far as I’m concerned one of the most underreported stories out of Jets camp this season is how much their third-string runningback/jack-of-all-trades resembles Edward Furlong.