The Hunkification Of Mark Sanchez Begins

No one has any idea when or if Mark Sanchez might quarterback the New York Jets, so if you're going to take advantage of his god-given manliness to sell some magazines get on that now.

Tom Brady? Never heard of him.

GQ is on the Sanchez tip this month, imagining him as a latter-day Hasselhoff. I'm not sure if that's the right angle for the brand known as "Mark Sanchez," but I guess you have to start somewhere. It's all part of their larger strategy to put an athlete next to a half-naked babe and trick sports fans into staring at a dude's sweaty, rippled man abs. Wait ... I mean trick them into buying fashion magazines. By the way, the young lass in question is named Hilary Rhoda and yes, she's quite lovely.

"Yeah, she's, uh…Well, obviously she's gorgeous," Sanchez says, grasping for words. "She was just giving me pointers the whole time. She made me feel really…comfortable.

Yeah, that's why guys don't wear short shorts to the beach, but I digress. The man is really racking up the endorsement deals, the publicity appearances, the supermodel groping, and the tabloid mentions. (Although isn't it a little irresponsible for the New York Post to waste a headline gem like "FLIRTY SANCHEZ" during the offseason? Save it for October!) He's already light years ahead of Matt Leinart and he hasn't even picked out his hot tub yet.

That's because he's in New York, obviously, and not Glendale, but all this has to make Jets fans the opposite of "at ease." (Which they should be used to.) If Sanchez can get all the perks of being Tom Brady, without actually being Tom Brady, then what's his incentive to study the playbook? When the Post is interviewing nightclub owners instead of football scouts to determine if your quarterback has what it takes to succeed, I'm going to put that in the "warning signs" column. And the mesh beach shirt goes in the " no way I'm wearing that in public" column.

BUILT FOR THE BEACH [GQ Features] FLIRTY SANCHEZ [NY Post]