Eric Mangini

Mangini, now the coach of the Cleveland Browns, traded the No. 5 pick in the NFL Draft to the Jets, who used it to select USC quarterback Mark Sanchez.

Watching the proceedings from California, Sanchez received a phone call from Jets GM Mike Tanenbaum. He immediately put on a Jets baseball cap just before NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the pick, and the Jets fans at Radio City Music Hall let out a mix of cheers and boos.

The 6-foot-2, 228-pound Sanchez makes perfect sense for the Jets, who are desperately in need of a marquee quarterback after Brett Favre retired in the wake of last season’s failure to make the playoffs.

“It’s the right place and it’s pretty special. I’m glad the family’s around,” Sanchez told ESPN. “I just felt so comfortable with their coaching staff. I love what Coach [Rex] Ryan’s doing on the defensive end and that’s what I’m used to, coming from SC with Coach [Pete] Carroll being a defensive-minded coach. A good defense and a solid running game like they have, that’s a quarterback’s best friend. And then that front offensive line look’s great already, so I can’t wait to meet that team.”

Sanchez threw for 3,965 passing yards and 41 TDs in 16 starts at Southern Cal. He will compete with Kellen Clemens, who shares the same agent as Sanchez.

“I met him before and he’s a great guy,” Sanchez said. “It’s going to be a competition and it’s going to be fun for both of us. In a quarterback competition only one guy can play. It’s different than other positions. But we’re used to that kind of stuff and we’re pros so we’ll handle it like that.”

In return for the pick, the Browns got a 2009 1st round pick (17th overall); a 2009 2nd-round pick; DE Kenyon Coleman; QB Brett Ratliff; and DB Abram Elam.

My colleague Jane McManus of The Journal News has penned an interesting column criticizing The Jets Flight Crew.

If I ever took my 4-year-old daughter to a Jets game (she’s already been to a Yankees game and a high school football game at Giants Stadium), I’m not sure how I’d feel about her seeing the Flight Crew or how I’d explain what they were doing at a football game.

What do you think?

Jay Glazer broke the news that the former Green Bay Packers QB has been traded to the Jets.

“I like going into New York, there’s great things to do there,” Rachel Nichols of ESPN reported Favre told her before the trade.

Truth is, the three-time NFL MVP will have better hunting opportunities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania than he would have had in Tampa.

This is a huge move for the Jets, and should make them an automatic contender in the AFC. Are the Jets suddenly the best team in New York, better still than the Super Bowl champion Giants?

It also means Chad Pennington or Kellen Clemens is out of work. Look for Pennington to be the odd man out.

“(Favre) is going to be a guy that’s coming and helping to save this organization,” ESPN football analyst Mark Schlereth said on ESPN.

“He still has an exceptionally strong arm, probably as strong as any quarterback in the National Football League. He’s still mobile, he can still move around, he can still get it done. Physically, there’s nothing that says to me…that he couldn’t play another one, two, three seasons, whatever he wants to play. It becomes a mental game…The great news about this switch is that it’s obvious that he’s felt underappreciated and unloved in Green Bay over the past two years.

“Just the feeling of love and acceptance and we really need you here to be part of a championship football team, that’s invigorating.

“I see him playing. I see him playing over the next couple of years and trying to help the Jets win a championship.”

The Jets open the season Sept. 7 at Miami.

(Photo courtesy Matt Bush, the AP)