10/01 — It's the first day of October, which means September is over. And a fine ninth month it was for Jets rookie QB Mark Sanchez.

And "The Sanchize" capped September (or did he start October) with one more honor when the NFL announced that he has been named the league's Offensive Rookie of the Month.

Here are the bullet points that the NFL has supplied on Sanchez's fine first month of his pro career:

■ Sanchez, a first-round pick (No. 5 overall) from Southern California, became the first rookie quarterback since Greg Cook of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1969 to start and win his team’s first three games of a season.

■ He completed 49 of 83 passes (59.0 percent) for 606 passing yards with four touchdowns versus two interceptions and an 87.7 passer rating in September.

■ He totaled three touchdowns against the Tennessee Titans in Week 3 (two passing, one rushing).

■ He has led the Jets to a 3-0 record in September and became the first Jets rookie quarterback to start a game since MATT ROBINSON in 1977.

The NFL monthly award is not directly related to the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week honors, which Sanchez took after Games 1 and 2 and is in the running to claim for a third time when the fan online voting ends Friday at noon.

Sanchez becomes the fourth Jets rookie and the first Green & White offensive first-year man to gain NFL Rookie of the Month recognition. Safety Erik Coleman, now with Atlanta, won the 2004 September award and LB Jonathan Vilma, who will be waiting for his old team when the Jets visit the Saints on Sunday, took the rookie tiara in November 2004.

Then after Vilma injured his knee in the middle of 2007, David Harris came on to corral the November 2007 rookie honor. Harris, of course, is still a Jet, teamed up with Bart Scott in the middle of the Jets' defense and prepared to do to the New Orleans offense what Vilma and the Saints defense wants to do to Sanchez and the Jets' O.

The NFL Defensive Rookie of the Month went to Detroit Lions S Louis Delmas.

Rex Rolls Out "the Crowd"

Head coach Rex Ryan this week has stated this week that "preparation is the key to this game" coming up Sunday at New Orleans. And he said at his news conference that in general today's practice preparation was good.

But specifically, he wants to see his and coordinator Brian Schottenheimer's offense respond even better to crowd noise than they did with the recorded noise blaring through the big speakers during the meat of practice.

"We had a few too many delay of games," Ryan said. "The crowd noise we have at practice is good — because it's going to be double that when we get to playing the game for real and we know that. If we're getting out of our plays, we've got to get out quick, make the proper audibles. We're going to work hard on that tomorrow as well."

Ryan said his injury report (today's official reports for the Jets and Saints are available here) got a little better today. CBs Lito Sheppard and Donald Strickland remained out of practice, but the coach said of Sheppard, "It looks like he's coming around. He was running today. We'll see with the trainers."

Then five players who were out or limited at Wednesday's practice went full today: CB Darrelle Revis (hamstring), safeties Jim Leonhard (knee) and Kerry Rhodes (knee), LB Larry Izzo (hamstring), and T Wayne Hunter (personal).

"I thought it was a great practice, great tempo," Rex assessed. "I think our guys are looking forward to this competition."

Fan of Vilma

Count Ryan as an admirer of Jonathan Vilma, once the Jets' first-round pick, NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl player, now the MLB for the Saints.

"I like Vilma, and I hope it's not tampering or anything, but I think he's a tremendous player," the coach said. "When he came out of Miami, we wanted to draft him [at Baltimore]. He's my kind of guy. The scheme I guess wasn't a great fit if you're going to play a traditional 3-4 defense like Eric [Mangini]. He probably doesn't fit that as much as other guys. With us, it's players over scheme. We're not going to pigeonhole guys into a system. We're going to adapt the system to the players.

"He's a great player. He would've been fun to coach," Ryan concluded. "But to be quite honest, I'm happy with what we've got."

One-Liners

Ryan has been asked any number of times about Kris Jenkins and has always given a remarkable report. Here is today's slightly different assessment of Big Jenk:

"There's a lot of big men in this world but very few as athletic as he is. He is a dominant force. When his pads are down, he's unblockable. When he raises up, he'll give you a chance to block him. It's almost like defending the perfectly thrown pass. No matter how good you've got your coverage, you can't stop it. Same with Kris: You got one man on him, no man on this planet can block this guy."

And this quick hitter on Mike Westhoff: "The way I am about defense is the way he is about special teams, without a doubt, and maybe more so."