NEW YORK JETS DAILY CLIPS

December 21, 2014

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Table of Contents

NEWSDAY .............................................................................................................................................................. 1

Someday, Jets-Patriots game day won't be a painful experience (Bob Glauber) ...................................................... 1

Seahawks happy they dealt Percy Harvin to Jets (Bob Glauber) ............................................................................... 3

Flashback: Rex Ryan's 'snack' speech on 'Hard Knocks' (Neil Best) ........................................................................... 4

THE RECORD .......................................................................................................................................................... 5

Sullivan: Fitting Rex’s likely home finale will come against nemesis Belichick (Tara Sullivan) .................................. 5

Jets want to play hard for Rex Ryan in home finale vs. Patriots (J.P. Pelzman) ........................................................ 6

Jets preview: Sunday, Dec. 21 vs. Patriots (J.P. Pelzman) ......................................................................................... 7

NJ ADVANCE MEDIA .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Q&A with Jets linebacker Jason Babin, who is going to Africa with his wife to hunt lions after the season (Darryl Slater) ........................................................................................................................................................................ 8

Jets-Patriots predictions: Our staff picks for Sunday's game (Dom Cosentino) ...................................................... 11

Darrelle Revis vs. Percy Harvin highlights 3 Jets-New England Patriots matchups to watch (Dom Cosentino) ...... 11

NFL draft order 2015: How Washington's win over Eagles impacts Jets (Dom cOsentino) .................................... 12

NEW YORK POST .................................................................................................................................................. 13

Gang Green geared for last homestand for Rex (Brian Costello) ............................................................................ 13

Jets DE Sheldon Richardson eyes Pro Bowl spot (Brian Costello) ........................................................................... 15

The angry Jets mob will get its wish: Idzik’s a goner (Steve Servy) ......................................................................... 16

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ...................................................................................................................................... 17

NY Jets hope for one last shot to Bill Belichick, Patriots (Seth Walder) .................................................................. 17

Rex Ryan delivered jokes, not Super Bowl rings as NY Jets coach (Gary Myers) .................................................... 19

NY Jets owner Woody Johnson needs to clean house, hand reins to Patriots duo of Nick Caserio and Josh McDaniels (Manish Mehta) ..................................................................................................................................... 20

Rex Ryan deserves some Christmas cheer from Jets fans in what could be his MetLife Stadium finale (Mike Lupica) ..................................................................................................................................................................... 23

NEW YORK TIMES ................................................................................................................................................ 26

Guided by Architect of Explosive Offenses, the Jets Sputter (Tom Pedulla) ........................................................... 26

METRO NEW YORK .............................................................................................................................................. 28

Jets - Patriots: 3 things to watch for (Kristian Dyer) ................................................................................................ 28

SATURDAY’S SPORTS TRANSACTIONS .................................................................................................................. 29

NEWSDAY

Someday, Jets-Patriots game day won't be a painful experience (Bob Glauber) Newsday

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December 21, 2014

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/bob-glauber/someday-jets-patriots-game-day-won-t-be-a-painful-experience-1.9735214

Someday this finally will be over.

Someday you won't wake up on game day for Jets-Patriots and have that knot in your stomach, knowing what's probably about to happen. You won't get to the MetLife Stadium tailgate to break bread -- and perhaps enjoy a few liquid refreshments -- with your friends and family, only to be reminded that Bill Belichick isn't your coach and Tom Brady isn't your quarterback.

Someday.

The sad reality of Jets-Patriots -- at least from the Jets' perspective -- is the unrelenting truth that this competition isn't really much of one at all. With meaningful victories over New England so few that they can be counted on one hand, the 14-year run of Belichick & Brady has been Jets fans' version of a monster that never goes away.

But someday it will.

Someday the 37-year-old Brady finally will give up on his dream of playing forever because time simply won't allow it. And someday the 62-year-old Belichick will have had enough of coaching and walk away to await his rightful place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Sadly for the Jets and their fans, that day might not come for another few years, so the pall that the coach and quarterback cast on the Jets' franchise will continue to loom no matter how hard they try to close the gap.

It once looked as if Rex Ryan would be the one to break the spell, that the bellicose coach with the same swagger and strategic smarts as his dad would break do it once and for all. Ryan told the world that he didn't come here to kiss Belichick's rings, and for a while, it seemed as if he could reshape the narrative.

Ryan's first game against Belichick in 2009 was a 16-9 win, and he beat the Patriots again in their first meeting in 2010. And after being humiliated in a 45-3 rout on Monday night in Foxborough in that season's rematch, Ryan pulled off the biggest shocker of all: a 28-21 win in the divisional round of the playoffs that launched the Jets into a second straight AFC Championship Game.

But it has been a lopsided matchup ever since.

Brady and Belichick have won six of the last seven meetings heading into Sunday's game at MetLife Stadium, and Ryan is facing his nemesis for what likely will be the final time as the Jets' coach. Team owner Woody Johnson, who has mostly adored all that Ryan has provided over the years, is expected to show him the door after a fourth straight season without a playoff berth.

Ryan has carried himself with a commendable spirit of optimism as he trudges toward what appears to be his inevitable fate. His players still adore him and still want him back next season, although they soon will find out that their votes don't count. And despite the hopelessness that goes along with a 3-11 record, Ryan's team will play hard against the Patriots, who are 11-3 and in good position to play in yet another Super Bowl.

Who knows? There still might be one more upset win in Ryan, although the oddsmakers suggest otherwise.

"I can sit back and say, 'Well, it's not . It's just another opponent.' But no, it is [special], because they've won six division championships in a row, so that's the one to beat," Ryan said.

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"I don't care what our record is now. We never played one in this type of situation. Yeah, you've got a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback and a coach, so yeah, you want to mark yourself up against the best. They've been the best in our division clearly and so I think that's special.

"Obviously, the results, we're 1-6 and that sounds terrible, but I know it's competitive. Believe me, they're not looking at us as a 3-11 team, I can promise you."

And even though, as Bill Parcells always says, you are what your record says you are, Ryan doesn't look at his Jets as a 3-11 team.

The Ryan bravado has been turned down a notch, to the point that Patriots cornerback Darrelle Revis used the word "sad" to describe his old team. But make no mistake: Ryan will coach this game as if it's for the AFC championship. Even if it is only another brutal reminder of just how mind-numbingly difficult it is for Jets fans to cope with it.

There will be plenty of "penalty towels" waving to implore Johnson to fire general manager John Idzik, and there will be plenty of boos if the Jets fall to the Patriots again. More sad reminders of just how futile the team's pursuit of Brady and Belichick has been over the years.

Belichick himself once was looked to as the coach who would save the Jets, but his tenure lasted only a day in January 2000 because he knew he wanted to work for Robert Kraft in New England instead of Johnson. Less than four months later, with the 199th pick in the draft, Belichick took a skinny quarterback out of Michigan to back up Drew Bledsoe.

The next season, after Jets linebacker Mo Lewis knocked Bledsoe out of a Week 2 game in Foxborough, Brady took the field for the first time. It would be the beginning of the greatest coach/quarterback partnership in NFL history -- and the continuation of another long-running string of futility for long-suffering Jets fans.

Someday . . . someday.

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Seahawks happy they dealt Percy Harvin to Jets (Bob Glauber) Newsday December 21, 2014

http://www.newsday.com/sports/football/seahawks-happy-they-dealt-percy-harvin-to-jets-1.9735161

The Seahawks took a calculated gamble by trading away disgruntled wide receiver Percy Harvin, who only last year had signed a $67-million deal after being traded for two draft picks, including a first-rounder. But the move to deal Harvin to the Jets on Oct. 17 has worked out just fine for the defending Super Bowl champions.

Seattle was 3-2 at the time of the deal, and after an upset loss to the Rams two days after the trade, they have won seven of eight. At 10-4 and with a game in Arizona tonight against the 11-3 Cardinals, the Seahawks can win the NFC West if they beat Arizona and then the Rams at home in the regular-season finale.

Wide receiver Doug Baldwin has been the main beneficiary of Harvin's departure; 40 of his 56 catches and all three of his touchdown receptions have come after the trade. And Seattle has shown much more willingness to stick to their ground & pound approach with tailback Marshawn Lynch and a smothering defense that has picked it up a notch with the return of linebacker Bobby Wagner.

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No surprise that Andrew Luck is succeeding in the early going of his NFL career. The No. 1 pick in 2012 was ticketed for stardom from the beginning. Russell Wilson? Not so much. The Seahawks took him in the third round the same year, but he is proving every bit as good as a high first-round pick.

Luck and Wilson are now the only quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era to lead their teams to at least 10 wins in each of their first three seasons.

"We've got a lot of football ahead of us," said Wilson, who won his 34th start last week, the most by a quarterback in his first three seasons in the Super Bowl era. "Hopefully, we can keep winning and keep finding ways to win."

In the hot seat

The Jets finish their season next Sunday in Miami, where many believe that Rex Ryan will be coaching his final game for New York. It could also be the last game on the Dolphins' sideline for Joe Philbin.

Though still mathematically in contention for a playoff spot at 7-7, the Dolphins' need two wins and plenty of help to get in. And if they fail to reach the playoffs, it could be the end for Philbin after three seasons. He's just 22-24 so far, and with quarterback Ryan Tannehill showing only modest improvement, it appears the Dolphins will be looking elsewhere to find another coach to work with the young passer.

Other coaches either on the hot seat or gone: Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers, who is leaving mostly of his own volition and will choose between the NFL and his alma mater Michigan; Tony Sparano of the Raiders, Marc Trestman of the Bears, Jay Gruden of Washington, and Mike Smith of Atlanta.

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Flashback: Rex Ryan's 'snack' speech on 'Hard Knocks' (Neil Best) Newsday December 20, 2014

http://www.newsday.com/sports/football/jets/flashback-rex-ryan-s-snack-speech-on-hard-knocks-1.9732751

As Rex Ryan prepares for what is expected to be his final home game as the Jets’ coach on Sunday, let’s take a stroll down memory lane to the greatest speech in the history of HBO’s “Hard Knocks’’ series.

It came in 2010, which Ryan helped make the highest-rated season of the show, thanks to material such as this in a speech to the team at a Philadelphia hotel the night before the preseason finale against the Eagles.

“You guys know me – that I’m about as positive a guy as there is. I believe our team is better than every [expletive] team in the league. I believe our players are better than any players in the league, right? Those are true statements. That’s how I believe.

“But, the team’s only going so far, if I’m the only guy that leads. The team is only going so far. I’m not a great leader, OK? I’m not a great leader, I can’t lead myself, this whole group of men. We ain’t gonna win guys, if it’s about me. I’m sitting back waiting for us to understand the team that we said we were gonna be.

“What the [expletive] are we waiting on? What are we waiting on? Do you want it or not? Do you understand there’s a price to pay? Can we have fun? You’re damn right! I demand that we have fun. Now there’s a difference between having fun and being a [expletive].

“Our defense was a [expletive] when we went to Hofstra, eating a bunch of [expletive] cheeseburgers, before we go stretch and all that. That’s being a jackass. You’ll be a world champion, but not like this. We

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won’t win it. We’ll sit back and say ‘Why didn’t we do it?’ We didn’t do it because where were our [expletive] priorities?

“How about our offense? When are we gonna put it together? When are we gonna put it together? Can we not run the ball down their throats every snap? Can we not throw anytime we wanna [expletive] throw it?

“Let’s make sure we play like [expletive] New York Jets and not some [expletive] [expletive] team. That’s what I wanna see tomorrow. Do we understand what the [expletive] I wanna see tomorrow? Let’s go eat a goddamn snack!’’

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THE RECORD

Sullivan: Fitting Rex’s likely home finale will come against nemesis Belichick (Tara Sullivan) The Record December 21, 2014

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/sullivan-fitting-rex-s-likely-home-finale-will-come-against-nemesis-belichick-1.1173265

FLORHAM PARK – Rex Ryan stormed into New York with this oversized body and these outsized promises, booming from the metaphorical mountaintop about White House visits and championship hardware, swearing off kissing Bill Belichick’s rings before he ever took the field as the head coach of the Jets.

No, Ryan never came here to live in the middle ground, choosing instead to pilot his way through six Jets seasons as if he was operating a speeding football roller coaster. He would carry this beleaguered franchise to high-flying, dizzying excitement only to bring it down to low-lying, depressed despair, a wild ride that took us from unexpected back-to-back conference title games back when he was hefty Rex, to this unwatchable three-win season as the recast skinny Rex.

Under a wave of fan discontent and against a familiar football nemesis, Ryan’s car pulls into MetLife Stadium this afternoon for the final time of the 2014 season, a game that has all the feeling of a farewell nod a coach unlikely to survive the firing line following next Sunday’s finale in Miami. That Ryan would meet his probable home field end against the mighty Patriots, taking on the very coach whose four Super bowl rings he so brazenly chose to ignore somehow feels right, like the only fitting end to a wildly incongruous tenure.

“Definitely,” veteran linebacker Calvin Pace would admit after practice Friday. “Best way to go out — if that’s the case.”

Nothing is officially the case yet, but even as Ryan maintained his best professional persona, even as he kept his composure and his sense of humor during this awful season, he understood the odds were spiraling against him. As much as there was laughter in his

“I’m not dead yet,” insistence after his team practiced Friday afternoon, the obvious unsaid implication came through loud and clear: I might be soon.

If only he could have delivered on that opening promise of toppling the Patriots off their mighty AFC East perch, if only he could have fully scaled the New England mountain and matched Belichick’s multiple titles with at least one of his own, the entire conversation about him would be so different. But from the magical moment the Jets won a divisional playoff game in New England to advance to the AFC title game in 2011, it’s been a downhill ride all the way.

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For all Ryan wanted us to believe it when he remembered that game Friday by saying, “I never thought that was going to be the changing of the guard,” his current version of events stands in stark contrast to what we heard back then, from a man who followed a Week 13 blowout loss to that same team in that same building by demanding an immediate rematch, one he promised would have a different outcome.

Rex got his day, but never did get his ring, and the agonizingly slow descent of the Jets since is why we see two teams that, while on the same field today, are in two very different places. With Belichick on the sideline and Tom Brady in the huddle, the Patriots are back atop the conference heap, favorites to secure home-field advantage on the way to a potential fourth title. The hapless Jets are headed for yet another rebuilding project, searching once again for the “quarterback” in “franchise quarterback,” and just as likely looking for the right coach to teach him.

Give Ryan this: He’s never run from his introductory comments challenging Belichick by name, never allowed for regret regarding the “kiss-the-rings” comment.

“I never came here to do that,” Ryan said last week. “I came here to kick his butt.”

But neither can he hide from the repercussions of his failure.

“Obviously, I haven’t been very successful at it, but that list is long,” he continued. “I’m not just the only name on that list. I might be the only one that had the guts to say something about it, but that’s how I am. That’s how I feel this week, too. No different than any other time I’ve been here.”

Yet everything feels so different. There was former Jets All Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis on the phone during the week from his new home in New England, calling it “kind of sad” to see the position his onetime defensive leader is in now, putting voice to the melancholy that accompanies Ryan’s apparent imminent end. There was Ryan on Friday, reduced to making himself the butt of his own joke about comparative coaching profiles with Belichick – “I probably think he’s a lot better coach than he thinks I am. I think that’s safe to say,” he said – while describing the contrary-to-public-opinion cordiality that defines their professional relationship.

“We’d like everybody to think that we don’t like each other, but that’s not the facts,” Ryan said. “He’s not somebody that you can hang out with or something like that, at least I don’t. We’re cordial. Anytime we see each other off the field or we talk to each other, it’s just the opposite of what people think.”

We only thought it because Ryan told us so, but now, he is living in his own opposite world, straddling the middle of the road, banished from those heady heights that ushered him into town. Maybe that’s the way the game goes today, too, with the Jets hanging around just long enough to make the game interesting, but ending up where we expected, with a loss. Or maybe the Ryan tenure falls to yet another low, a blowout to the favored division rivals putting one more exclamation point of embarrassment on Ryan’s biography.

Or maybe the Jets put forth a valiant effort, pull off the upset, and push their embattled leader back to the metaphorical mountaintop he rode in on. That would be some turn-back-the-clock moment all right, a last stand reminder of what might have been. But even if it happens, the Patriot mountain is still unmoved, and Ryan still caught in its shadow.

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Jets want to play hard for Rex Ryan in home finale vs. Patriots (J.P. Pelzman) The Record December 21, 2014

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/football/playing-for-rex-today-1.1173271

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Rex Ryan's players have heard the constant rumors and speculation that have swirled since the Jets' 2014 season began to head toward oblivion. And they are well aware today's game against visiting New England could be Ryan's last home game as the Jets' coach.

They would like to prevent that, even though it may not be possible by this point, as the 3-11 Jets continue to play out the string.

"It's something that you try not to think about," right tackle Breno Giacomini said when asked about the possible upheaval that could be taking place within the franchise once the season ends. "We're trying to live in the moment right now. All we really have is today."

Giacomini signed as a free agent in March, replacing Austin Howard, who left for Oakland. Having been on Pete Carroll's teams in Seattle for four years, he knows what it's like to be with a players' coach. And in Giacomini's opinion, Ryan has more than lived up to his reputation.

"He's an exceptional coach to play for," Giacomini said of Ryan. "It's been awesome. I don't want him to go anywhere. We all know this is a business, so I'm going to do what I can do and that is to go out there and fight for my head coach on the field. [Ryan's job status] is something that I can't control. What I can control is the effort that I leave on the field for him and the rest of my teammates also."

Wide receiver-kick returner Percy Harvin has only been coached by Ryan for just over two months, yet he sees the same qualities in Ryan.

"Guys will run through a wall for Rex," said Harvin, who played a limited role against Tennessee last week despite a torn ligament in his sprained left ankle.

But all that love, admiration and respect for Ryan hasn't translated into many wins this season, and hasn't translated into a playoff appearance since 2010. That's why Ryan is on the hot seat, as is general manager John Idzik, who has whiffed on numerous draft picks and free-agent signees. His failures are another reason why Ryan's days in green and white could be numbered.

A fan protest is planned for today in which spectators will urge owner Woody Johnson to "clean house" and fire Idzik, senior personnel executive Terry Bradway and team president Neil Glat.

Against that bizarre backdrop, the Jets could be playing their last home game for Ryan.

"I think we handle it as professionals," linebacker-defensive end Quinton Coples said of all the speculation.

"I think at the end of the day, we all understand that this is a business. So, we play hard for [Ryan], we prepare for him and we do our job.

"As professionals, we have a job to do," Coples added. "That's our focus. We don't get caught up with what is going on, any speculations, or any other things. We just go out and play hard, not only for our jobs, but also for our coach as well. And I think that's the way we approach practice and games day in and day out."

"I hope we can send them off on a good note," quarterback Geno Smith said of the fans.

"Obviously it hasn't been the season that we wanted. Everyone around here is frustrated, and knowing that we have to get better, I think that it will be good for the fans and for us all to just end this season on a good note at home, and give the fans something to cheer about."

And perhaps give Ryan bragging rights over the Patriots for one last time.

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Jets preview: Sunday, Dec. 21 vs. Patriots (J.P. Pelzman)

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The Record December 21, 2014

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/football/jets-preview-sunday-dec-21-vs-patriots-1.1173360

Patriots (11-3) at Jets (3-11)

At MetLife Stadium, today, 1 p.m.

TV: Ch. 2 Radio: ESPN-FM 98.7

Line: Patriots by 10 1/2

What's at stake

Jets: The Jets, who visit Miami a week from today, need one victory in their last two games to avoid their worst record since the 1996 team finished 1-15 in the second and final year of Rich Kotite's tenure as coach. A win also would raise their record to 4-2 at home against New England during the Rex Ryan era.

Patriots: New England clinched its sixth consecutive AFC East title, and 11th division crown in the past 12 seasons, with a rout of Miami last week. A win over the Jets today would cement a first-round bye for the Patriots, who need victories in their last two games to secure home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. They also could reach that goal with a win today combined with a Denver loss at Cincinnati on Monday night.

Key matchup

Jets coach Rex Ryan vs. Patriots QB Tom Brady : This has been a fascinating chess match over the years, with Ryan sometimes electing to send plenty of blitzes at Brady, and sometimes playing eight men in coverage and forcing Brady to throw underneath. Including playoffs, Brady is 20-6 lifetime as a starter against the Jets, and 8-4 during the Ryan era. He has 22 TD passes and six interceptions against Ryan's Jets.

How they'll win

Jets: As they did in the first matchup in October, the Jets run the ball effectively, which gives Geno Smith more time to throw. However, New England has improved on defense since then, especially in the second half. The Patriots haven't allowed a TD after halftime in their past four games. As always in this rivalry, the mission of the Jets' defense will be to make Brady uncomfortable in the pocket. But the 37-year-old QB still throws well on the run.

Patriots: Brady likely will pick on two chronic weaknesses of the Jets in recent years, their inability to consistently cover slot receivers and tight ends. However, Julian Edelman (92 receptions) is out with a concussion, so Brady likely will turn more often to superstar TE Rob Gronkowski (76 catches, 11 TDs). The secondary, let by former Jets CB Darrelle Revis, must play better than it did in the earlier meeting, when Smith threw for 226 yards and committed no turnovers. Revis has two of the Patriots' 15 interceptions, as does former St. Joseph Regional standout Devin McCourty.

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NJ ADVANCE MEDIA

Q&A with Jets linebacker Jason Babin, who is going to Africa with his wife to hunt lions after the season (Darryl Slater) NJ Advanced Media December 20, 2014

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http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2014/12/qa_with_jets_linebacker_jason_babin_who_is_going_to_africa_with_his_wife_to_hunt_lions_after_the_sea.html

FLORHAM PARK -- When the Jets signed Jason Babin on the eve of training camp, it seemed natural to wonder just how much he had left. Babin, 34, was entering his 11th NFL season. The Jaguars had just cut him.

But even as the Jets are mired in a miserable 3-11 season entering Sunday's home finale against the Patriots, Babin has quietly put together a productive year. He has played about 45 percent of the Jets' defensive snaps, and ranks fourth on the team with 21 quarterback hurries. He has two sacks.

Long a pass-rushing specialist, Babin has been asked to also play a more traditional outside linebacker role at times this season. The past three weeks, Babin has started at rush outside linebacker in place of Quinton Coples, because Coples moved to defensive end, to replace Muhammad Wilkerson, sidelined by turf toe.

Pro Football Focus rates Babin as the NFL's seventh-best outside linebacker, including ninth in pass coverage and second against the run. Strangely enough, he is 18th in pass-rush ratings. Rushing the quarterback was supposed to be his main role this year.

Babin has one year left on his contract with the Jets. His salary cap charge next year is scheduled to be $1.625 million, but he would count just $125,000 against the Jets' cap if they cut him. So they have some flexibility about deciding whether to retain him.

This week, Babin took some time to discuss his diverse on-field roles and his outdoorsman off-field pursuits, including a lion-hunting trip to Africa with his wife, Sara, coming up after this season.

Q: How do you think this year has gone for you?

A: It was a unique challenge for me individually, because I was asked to do some stuff that my rookie year that I did, outside linebacker stuff, stuff that I haven't done in eight or nine years. It was kind of a unique challenge to try and reassert myself in that role, instead of just being a down lineman, which everyone knows what I can do at that spot. They had me do some different stuff, from jamming wide receivers, coverage, dropping, where I blitz, all kinds of unique stuff from week to week. So it's been a fun challenge, even though we haven't had the victories that we would've liked.

Q: How much longer do you think you can play?

A: I still feel really good. I like to think I'm pretty honest with myself as far as where I'm at physically. I watch the tape and I feel pretty darn good about it. I think for me, it's really: How do I feel? And can I do it at a high level? I would never want to put myself in a bad situation if I couldn't physically do it anymore. That's not the case. For me, it's just neck up (mentally wanting to do it) at this particular point.

Q: You've mentioned taking bear-hunting trips to Alaska. Have you always been into hunting since you were a kid?

A: I've always been an outdoorsman -- hunting, fishing. I just have a little bit more means now, to get to some of these more exotic places. I went (growing up) with my dad whitetail (deer) hunting, turkey hunting, fishing on the Great Lakes, salmon come up the river, large-mouth bass tournaments. As I had a little bit more coin, I could afford to go to Alaska. We're trying to go to Africa in March, my wife and I. She said she's going to come with me. Any hunting trip I've ever gone on, she's never been on.

Q: What are you going to hunt in Africa?

A: Lion hunting. The amenities there are really plush, so that's how I convinced her to go. But she doesn't know that she has to get (immunization) shots yet, so I'm not going to tell her that until it's too late to back out.

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Q: So do you bring the lion back with you after you kill it?

A: It's quite the process. I won't be able to travel (home) with the lion. It's got to go through customs. It's got to go through inspections and get taxidermy. So it'll probably be 18 months before I actually see the lion.

Q: Are you going to get the entire lion stuffed?

A: I'll probably get a rug made out of it, if I'm lucky enough to harvest one.

Q: What about the head?

A: It's part of the rug. I already have some bear rugs (with the heads attached).

Q: Is lion meat edible?

A: We'll donate the meat to some of the local indigenous people. If you ever go on YouTube, type in "elapsed elephant skinning." It shows a bunch of indigenous people skinning the elephant, deboning the elephant. It starts with a big elephant and they cut the meat off, the legs off, they debone it, so there's nothing left. You can eat lion. You can eat elephant. I know it seems taboo here because we want to see it in the zoos, but it's not like there's a lot of lean protein over there anyway.

Q: How often do you hunt bears in Alaska?

A: I go every spring. I took my oldest son (who is 9) this past spring. He got his first bear. We hunt black bear. We fly into Anchorage and then we've got a small little plane that takes us on from there.

Q: How was your son with shooting the bear and all that?

A: I've always had my boys (ages 9, 7 and 16 months) with me at my hunting ranch (in Texas). They've shot deer and hogs and exotics. They love all that stuff. They love to skin the animals. My son skinned the bear. I helped him, but he did the good majority of it himself.

Q: Is bear meat any good?

A: It just depends. I've taken some home. Most of the time, we end up giving it away to a shelter because the cost of putting it on the plane is just expensive. Sometimes we'll take maybe the back straps (of meat) with us. We take the rugs. You salt them and roll them up and you just put them right in the backpack.

Q: So you had a hunting ranch?

A: I had a big hunting ranch (in Texas) that I sold about a year and a half ago (after owning it for about five years). We built like a 20-acre lake. We had this high fence. We had laparoscopic pens we built. I bred whitetail deer scientifically. I built a big lodge, roads. Just a fun place. It used to be open for corporate hunting, pre-'08 (when the economy crashed). Now I purely just cattle ranch, (on) just leased land (elsewhere in Texas). We have about 347 heifers. Then we've got about 120 steers at the stockyard right now. It's strictly an investment.

Q: When you're at your cattle ranch, are you riding on the horse with a lasso?

A: Let me be clear: I don't get on the horse. I'm more of a four-wheeler guy. But if I'm there and something is going on, if we're de-nutting or branding or separating, I'll help out. But I hired a service that does that maintenance and all that stuff.

Q: And this is pretty good beef meat?

A: Our stuff is the kind of stuff you get a Ruth's Chris, real high-end steak. It's Angus. I stay busy in the offseason, try to get ready for the real-life scenarios. I have a lot of diversified investments, outside just

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the usual money market stuff. We have a construction development company in Michigan and build master-planned communities. We're doing some big mid-rises and development of some bar and restaurant type stuff. It's some pretty fun stuff.

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Jets-Patriots predictions: Our staff picks for Sunday's game (Dom Cosentino) NJ Advanced Media December 20, 2014

http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2014/12/jets-patriots_predictions_our_staff_picks_for_sundays_game.html

This is how Team NJ Advance Media sees Sunday's pillow fight at MetLife Stadium between the Patriots (11-3) and Jets (3-11) shaking out. Per Bovada, the Jets are 11-point underdogs, which is kind of historic.

Darryl Slater, Jets beat writer (7-6-1 against the spread, 9-5 straight up): There's no way the Jets can win this game, right? The Patriots are surging, at 11-3, having won nine of their past 10 games. The Jets are 3-11, and before last week's win at Tennessee, they went 1-11 in their previous 12 games. But for as superb as the Patriots have been lately (six straight AFC East titles), the Jets regularly play them close. The Jets are 1-6 against the Patriots over the past four seasons, but one of those losses was by nine points, two were by three points, and one loss came by two points (earlier this season in New England). You know Jets coach Rex Ryan, on his way toward being fired, desperately wants to win this game. Once again, he will come agonizingly close to doing it. Patriots 21, Jets 20

Steve Politi, columnist (5-8-1 against the spread, 7-7 straight up): You ever wonder what might have happened if, in his third season, Rex Ryan decided he needed an elite quarterback to win and kidnapped Tom Brady? It would have made for a great movie, and since the plot would have included no attempts to assassinate Kim Jong Un, there'd be no reason to pull it from theaters! Patriots 34, Jets 17

Dom Cosentino, Jets beat writer (7-6-1 against the spread, 11-3 straight up): Imagine for a moment what might happen if the Jets were to win this game. Rex Ryan strutting off the field, moonwalking to the podium for his postgame press conference, and spiking the microphone. Of course I'm just guessing that's what he'll do after the emotion of beating the Patriots in what is likely his final home game as the Jets' head coach finally catches up to him. It would be an all-timer, and it's nice to think about. Only none of it's going to happen. Patriots 28, Jets 10

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Darrelle Revis vs. Percy Harvin highlights 3 Jets-New England Patriots matchups to watch (Dom Cosentino) NJ Advanced Media December 20, 2014

http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2014/12/darrelle_revis_vs_percy_harvin_highlights_3_jets-new_england_patriots_matchups_to_watch.html

Even with the Jets at 3-11 and Rex Ryan humbled by the likely prospect he'll get fired in a little more than a week, Sunday's game is still Jets-Patriots, it's still a rivalry, and it still has some implications on the AFC's playoff scenarios.

With that, we give you three matchups to be mindful of on Sunday:

Jets WR Percy Harvin vs. Patriots CB Darrelle Revis

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Harvin, the Jets' real, live deep-threat receiver, said Friday his severely sprained ankle feels "a whole lot better." He had also been limited at practice this week to help aid his recovery. Harvin had played on his bum ankle last week against the Titans, though he didn't have any catches (on three targets) and managed just 10 rushing yards on one carry. You might have heard of that Revis fellow. Used to play for the Jets, apparently. Pro Football Focus has him with the second-best grade of any cornerback in the league this season, and with the second-best cover snaps per reception. But Revis is not impenetrable: The Jets' Eric Decker managed to catch a couple of passes on him in the teams' first meeting back in October.

Jets RG Willie Colon vs. Patriots DE Vince Wilfork

Wilfork has lined up mainly as a left defensive end in the Pats' 3-4 scheme this season, and he continues to excel as a run-stopper; PFF has him with a grade of 12.1 against the run, and only five others have earned higher marks. Part of the reason the Jets kept that first game against the Pats close was because they pounded out 218 rushing yards and averaged 5.1 yards per carry. To have a chance on Sunday, they'll probably need to do the same.

Jets pass defense vs. Patriots QB Tom Brady

The Jets relied on various coverage schemes rather than blitzes in the teams' first meeting. It went ... OK. Brady was able to connect with Shane Vereen for a 49-yard touchdown early, and just when it looked like the Jets had the Pats stopped late, Danny Amendola beat Antonio Allen on a third-and-goal from the 19 that proved to be the winning score. The Jets have frequently rotated personnel with their safeties and corners in recent weeks. Look for more of the same on Sunday.

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NFL draft order 2015: How Washington's win over Eagles impacts Jets (Dom cOsentino) NJ Advanced Media December 21, 2014

http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2014/12/nfl_draft_order_2015_how_washingtons_win_over_eagles_impacts_jets.html

Thanks to the sort of Mark Sanchez interception that was once all-too-familiar to Jets fans, Washington just defeated the Eagles in a "Thursday Night Football" game played on Saturday (don't ask), and that outcome has affected the Jets' position in the 2015 NFL draft order.

The Jets came into Week 16 sitting on the No. 6 pick. But Washington is now 4-11, giving it a better record than the 3-11 Jets, which means the Jets now have the No. 5 pick, while Washington falls to No. 6. And the Jets are 11-point underdogs against the 11-3 Patriots on Sunday, so chances are the Jets won't drop below No. 5 by the time Week 16 is over.

Here, as of Saturday at 9 p.m., is how the draft order shakes out, including team records and strength-of-schedule percentages:

6. Washington (4-11, .477)

5. Jets (3-11, .533)

4. Jaguars (3-12, .505)

3. Raiders (2-12, .571)

2. Bucs (2-12, .470)

1. Titans (2-13, .484)

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Care for some projection possibilities? A Jets loss to the Patriots coupled with a Raiders win over the Bills on Sunday would vault the Jets to No. 4. But a Jets loss and a Bucs loss to the Packers would not affect the Jets' draft position. The Jets cannot vault past the Jaguars this week because the Jets have a higher strength-of-schedule percentage.

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NEW YORK POST

Gang Green geared for last homestand for Rex (Brian Costello) New York Post December 20, 2014

http://nypost.com/2014/12/20/gang-green-geared-for-last-homestand-for-rex/

The Jets have not had a lot to play for in weeks now. The playoffs became unlikely in October and impossible in November.

But now the Jets get a game in December for which they have no problem getting motivated. The hated Patriots come to MetLife Stadium on Sunday.

This is the 3-11 Jets’ playoff game.

“You could say that,” defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson said. “It’s Tom Brady, big game. I’m always geeked to play against that guy.”

So are the rest of the Jets.

The 11-3 Patriots are trying to lock up home-field advantage in the playoffs, so they will be properly motivated even though it is late December.

Add in the fact this could be Rex Ryan’s final home game as head coach of the Jets, and this matchup is more attractive than it initially appears.

The Jets still are smarting from how the first meeting ended this year, when the Patriots won 27-25 after blocking a Nick Folk 58-yard field goal attempt as time expired. That loss dropped the Jets to 1-6 and basically ended any hope of them turning this season around.

“They’re our rivals,” guard Willie Colon said. “We’re still unsettled by how we finished the last game — obviously, getting a field goal blocked. We just want to finish the season on a strong note. They’re a very worthy opponent.”

In that game, the Jets held the ball for 40 minutes, 54 seconds and scored on their first five possessions, but still lost. The Patriots have been on fire since that game, losing only once. They beat the Dolphins 41-13 last week and have scored more than 40 points in five games this season.

“They’re hotter now on offense,” Richardson said. “The receivers are more in synch with Tom and vice versa. The run game is picking up a lot more. They’re just hitting on all cylinders right now. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

The Jets players know change is coming. Ryan likely will be fired in a week, and general manager John Idzik could be, too. The roster will undergo massive changes under a new regime. With that in mind, players are trying to relish their final weeks together.

“This team is going to be different next year. We all know that,” Colon said. “I’m just embracing all that. That’s where my head is at. I’m taking it all in, soaking it all up and just playing football.“

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Marquee Matchup

Jets WR vs. Patriots CB

It is the Return of Revis in this game, as the former Jets star comes back to MetLife Stadium in a Patriots uniform. Revis has been playing extremely well of late and has given the New England defense a new dimension. According to Pro Football Focus, he has given up 37 receptions on 74 targets for 483 yards, two touchdowns and he has two interceptions.

Quarterbacks have a 68.7 rating when throwing his way.

The Jets expect him to cover Harvin, whom the Jets acquired by trade for the day after the first meeting in October. Harvin was limited by an ankle sprain last week in Tennessee but said he feels better this week. Harvin is looking forward to facing Revis.

“He’s looking like Revis,” Harvin said. “He’s definitely one of the top corners in this league. It should be a good matchup.”

4 Downs

Rushing Repeat

The Jets feel like their best offensive game of the season may have come in Foxborough. On that Thursday night, they ran for 218 yards, gained 423 total, had 28 first downs and controlled the ball for more than 40 minutes. But they still lost, mainly because they fell short in the red zone.

Surely, the Jets will be trying to repeat that success Sunday with a clean game from quarterback Geno Smith and a heavy dose of running the ball.

“This time around we just have to kind of stay with the same recipe, really set the tempo, be physical and flat out go out and play better,” guard Willie Colon said. “It is what it is at this point. Go out and let it loose. That’s where we are at this point.”

Getting Gronked

Jets players were asked to fill out ballots this week for a magazine’s postseason awards. One of the categories was Comeback Player of the Year. A few puzzled players looked for help from reporters and Jets staffers. When Rob Gronkowski was mentioned, players rolled their eyes. They remembered just what they had to deal with this week.

Gronkowski is back to his pre-injury form and is tearing up opponents. He has 1,093 yards receiving and 11 touchdowns. He is just the second tight end ever to have two seasons with more than 1,000 yards receiving and more than 10 touchdowns, joining Jimmy Graham.

Attacking Brady

Jets coach Rex Ryan has had some interesting battles with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Ryan has thrown all kinds of different looks at him, trying to crack the code of how to beat the future Hall of Famer.

During their October meeting, Ryan played a ton of coverage help, dropping eight or nine guys sometimes into coverage and giving him a light pass rush. Does he change it up this time and bring the blitzes? It will be fun to watch the strategy unfold.

“Tom Brady’s probably seen everything you probably could throw at someone,” defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman said. “It’s not about fooling anybody when you play the Patriots.”

A Full Deck

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Receiver Eric Decker had his best game as a Jet last week, catching seven passes for 100 yards. Decker finally feels healthy after battling a hamstring injury for most of the season.

In his first season as a Jet, Decker has 62 catches for 720 yards and four touchdowns. Those are not the type of numbers he put up in Denver with Peyton Manning, but they are about as good as the Jets could have expected in their offense. The Jets have not had a 70-catch receiver since 2008 when Jerricho Cotchery and Laveranues Coles both hit the mark.

Costello’s Call

Do the Jets have one last gasp in them for coach Rex Ryan? This would be quite a going away present for Ryan in what most expect to be his final home game. The Jets came close to knocking off New England in October, but I think this is a different Patriots team. It won’t be close this time.

Patriots 31, Jets 17

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Jets DE Sheldon Richardson eyes Pro Bowl spot (Brian Costello) New York Post December 20, 2014

http://nypost.com/2014/12/20/jets-de-sheldon-richardson-eyes-pro-bowl-spot/

The Pro Bowl rosters will be announced on Tuesday night, and Jets defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson expects to hear his name called.

“I like my chances,” Richardson said this week. “I really do. I don’t feel like any guy is better than me and I feel like I’m on the same level as some of those guys you see on ESPN every day getting mentioned. That’s just me personally. Fans may think otherwise. Coaches may think otherwise. Players may think otherwise.”

Richardson does not lack confidence, but his numbers have backed up his boasting over the first two years of his career. The 2013 Defensive Rookie of the Year has gotten even better this year. He leads the team with 6.5 sacks and has been a constant disruptive force in the opponent’s backfield.

“Other than winning, I did all right,” he said. “I improved on everything I wanted to improve on. I’ve still got some room for more [improvement].”

Richardson is not just a relentless player, he is a creative one. The next time a quarterback spikes the football to stop the clock against the Jets, watch Richardson. He dives between the center’s legs and tries to intercept the spike before it hits the ground. Richardson said he actually intercepted a pass in high school by doing that and he touched Charlie Whitehurst’s spike last week in Tennessee.

“I always feel like I have a chance when I dive and put my hands out,” he said.

When pointed out that the spike dive was really creative thinking, Richardson smiled and said, “I have my moments.”

He hopes he’ll be wearing a smile again Tuesday when the six interior defensive linemen are named to the Pro Bowl. He was sixth in fan voting, as of Friday. Teammate Muhammad Wilkerson was fourth.

“Hopefully I get it,” Richardson said. “I feel like I deserve to be there. If not, it wouldn’t be the first time a good D-lineman gets snubbed.”

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Guard Willie Colon has been called for 14 penalties this season with two of them being declined. The 12 penalties against him are the second-most against any player in the league. Cornerback Brandon Browner of the Patriots has 13.

“Yeah, Big Willie’s a good player, man, a good player. I’ll tell you that,” offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said. “He wants to do the thing the right way, there’s no question about that. It’s sort of been that way for his career, and so we’re certainly trying to get better at that and he’s trying to get better at that.”

Colon has seven false starts, five holding calls, one illegal use of the hands and one facemask.

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The angry Jets mob will get its wish: Idzik’s a goner (Steve Servy) New York Post December 21, 2014

http://nypost.com/2014/12/21/the-angry-jets-mob-will-get-its-wish-idziks-a-goner/

His crimes against Jets humanity are well documented. So it is Penalty Flag Day at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, when the angry mob gives it to general manager John Idzik, and gives it to him good, and all this Christmas jeer washes over coach Rex Ryan on the last day he gets to coach his dream team at home against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots.

Roughing the GM.

The outrage, directed to Jets owner Woody Johnson, will be painful to witness, four nights before Christmas and all through the crumbling house, but it comes with the territory, especially when a long-suffering fan base that hasn’t won anything in 46 years feels as though it was sold a bill of goods and betrayed.

It seems preposterous that those who feel compelled to throw their yellow flag on Idzik (Fire Idzik! Clean house!) for intentional grounding of the 2014 season will view him as every bit the villain as Belichick, but the embattled GM might want to borrow Bobby Bonilla’s old earplugs just the same, because if Belichick is Public Enemy No. 1, Idzik is No. 1a. Or vice versa.

And if Idzik tries to throw the challenge flag for taunting, for unsportsmanlike conduct, for piling on, he will have the same luck as Knicks coach Derek Fisher attempting to get the official’s attention to call a timeout.

Idzik is Scrooge, walking into one loud “Scrooge you!”

Ryan, for sure, is not without blame. In training camp, when he told his players this was the team he dreamed of coaching and revealed his grand ambition of sweeping the Patriots and ambushing them at home in the playoffs, he never said a peep about being saddled with Dee Milliner and Dimitri Patterson at cornerback. He either trusted quarterback Geno Smith, or was ordered to trust Geno Smith, and never gave Michael Vick a chance. He may have remained the face of the franchise, but everybody could see he was wearing a corporate mask handed him by the GM.

No one, least of all the owner, expected 3-11 when 2013 ended. There was so much joy in Jetville in the visiting locker room in Miami at the end of the regular season when Idzik put his arm around Ryan and bellowed, “This is our coach!” Then the two of them returned home for a press conference where they sat side by side and Idzik pronounced them joined at the hip and both proclaimed their 8-8 Jets an ascending team.

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The descent, and eventual crash, began in earnest on draft day, when Idzik used all 12 of his picks and landed two players (safety Calvin Pryor and tight end Jace Amaro) who made minimal impacts. You generally wait three years to grade a draft, but no one, not even Ryan, would dare give him an A-plus grade for passing on one of the best wide receiver classes in a generation — passing on the likes of Brandin Cooks, Kelvin Benjamin, Jordan Matthews, Paul Richardson, Jarvis Landry, Marqise Lee, Allen Robinson, John Brown, Martavis Bryant to complement his free-agent prize, Eric Decker. The draft, remember, was trumpeted by Idzik when he arrived as the lifeblood of the organizational rebuilding blueprint.

Of all his failures, Idzik’s biggest was getting the quarterback wrong. He put all of Johnson’s eggs in Smith’s basket, and look how scrambled they are now. Any hope that the Jets could close the gap on the Patriots hinged on Smith picking up where he left off at the end of his rookie season and taking that next step. Instead, Smith took one misstep after another.

He missed a team meeting, cursed a fan, was mercifully benched, and announced he had shown flashes of being a Pro Bowl quarterback when he returned. All in all, Smith had too many Jets fans yearning for the good old days of Mark Sanchez. Even the bad old days.

It meant that Ryan, whose signature moment was upsetting the Patriots on the road in the 2010 playoffs with Sanchez, had as much chance of overthrowing the Brady-Belichick Evil Empire as Herm Edwards had with Chad Pennington, and Eric Mangini had with Pennington and Brett Favre. Especially with a defense Ryan vastly overrated.

Ryan, who certainly won’t be remembered as a quarterback whisperer, only can fantasize about how it would have turned out differently if he had Brady on his side. But he won’t. At least until he writes his memoirs.

“That’s obviously what you’re looking for,” he said. “You’re looking for the next Tom Brady. You’re looking for the next Peyton Manning. Those two guys, I always lump ’em both together, because in my opinion, has there really been any better than those two guys? And I guess you can put the [Aaron] Rodgers kid in that as well. But it’s like that’s as good as it gets, but I guess the fantasy thing comes on trying to find the next like that and hope that it hits in your watch.

“Obviously, every team in the league’s trying to do the same thing, you’re trying to get that guy, but we’ll see. And I’m not comparing Geno to Tom Brady, but hopefully he keeps making strides and things like that. But clearly, every team in the league’s looking to find the next Tom Brady. It’s a lot easier said than done.”

There are very few who trust Idzik to find anything better than the next Vernon Gholston. The natives weren’t nearly as restless about former GM Mike Tannenbaum when Johnson fired him at the end of a 6-10 season. The owner has seen the “Fire Idzik” planes overhead and the billboards and inadvertently favorited an angry tweet. He won’t be able to miss the pleas for action from his suite.

The circus was supposed to have left town when Idzik arrived. The Big Top returned with a vengeance.

There is no electoral college to save Idzik. His future most likely will be decided by popular vote, and it will be a landslide.

Ridzik.

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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

NY Jets hope for one last shot to Bill Belichick, Patriots (Seth Walder)

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New York Daily News December 20, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/jets-hope-shot-bill-belichick-patriots-article-1.2052060

Rex Ryan only has schadenfreude left to play for.

Ryan has gone through a torrential storm of a season, coaching a team that has been nothing but a giant letdown. It’s a long shot that the Jets could beat the Patriots, who are quite possibly the best team in the NFL, on Sunday. But if they could, Ryan would find reward enough just in watching Bill Belichick seethe afterward.

Though the Jets (3-11) gain nothing by winning, the Patriots (11-3) are fighting for home-field advantage in the playoffs. New England probably has to win both of its remaining games to secure home field at Gillette Stadium throughout the postseason.

Ryan admitted this week that this game means more to him than most do, because the Jets are playing the Patriots. What he wouldn’t say, but probably is true, is that it’s even bigger because it’s almost certainly the last time he gets to face the Patriots as head coach of the Jets. Ryan is expected to be fired after the Jets’ season finale against Miami on Dec. 28.

“It is a big game regardless of the situation we’re in,” Sheldon Richardson said. “It would be a plus for him.”

Ryan has made his disdain for the Patriots a public affair since he arrived in 2009 and declared he wouldn’t kiss Belichick’s rings. Since then, his feelings have been plenty apparent still, as he occasionally threw barbs in the Patriots’ direction, even when the Jets weren’t playing them.

“It’s evident how much he dislikes them guys,” Willie Colon said. “He’s our coach. If he hates them, we hate them.”

And that’s why Ryan wouldn’t be the only one who would relish seeing the Patriots somehow be flustered by the hapless Jets who have tripped over their own feet all year.

“Knocking off Tom Brady, wrecking their home-field advantage, hopes (would be great),” Richardson said. “And most of all, he’d have lost to the Jets. . . . We’re the fourth team in the division. So losing to the fourth team in the division . . . I don’t think he’d feel too good about that.”

That thought, of an imagined post-loss Brady, spread a grin wide across Richardson’s face.

“I’ve seen him frustrated before, it’s pretty funny; it’s funny as hell,” the defensive lineman said.

No matter what, the end of Ryan’s tenure will be ugly given how poorly this season has gone. But if the Jets somehow pull off the improbable on Sunday, it might lessen the pain Ryan and the Jets have suffered throughout the year. The coach came to the Jets in 2009 overflowing with confidence, but ultimately never was able to achieve his goal of dethroning Belichick. Even though Ryan achieved one of the greatest wins in franchise history by beating New England in the 2010 playoffs, he has just a 4-8 record against the Pats while coaching the Jets. New England, meanwhile, has won the AFC East all six years Ryan has been a part of it.

The Jets would actually be much better off losing — although their chances of earning the top pick in the draft are virtually zero. That was a big topic a week ago, but with the rival Patriots coming to town, there has been little draft pick chatter this week: there’s no questioning that members of Gang Green want to win.

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“We’ve endured so much. We’ve been through so much as a unit and especially as a team and an organization,” Colon said. “(I hope we) finish on the winning side of things instead of taking an ‘L’ and tailing off.”

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Rex Ryan delivered jokes, not Super Bowl rings as NY Jets coach (Gary Myers) New York Daily News December 20, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/myers-rex-delivered-jokes-not-rings-jets-coach-article-1.2052081

Rex Ryan made the Jets relevant, was always entertaining and even beat the Patriots in the playoffs, but he didn't keep his promise.

He said the Jets would be visiting the White House as Super Bowl champs, but the closest they ventured to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Ryan's six years came when they stayed in the D.C. area the night before they beat Washington in 2011 at FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

If Ryan or any of his players stopped by the White House, it was an unofficial visit.

The great thing about Rex is he wasn’t into coach speak — well, at least until John Idzik showed up.

He made wild Super Bowl guarantees and insisted before his first training camp that he never came here to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings, although it sure seemed like he was kissing up to him last week.

Ryan is among my top two or three favorite coaches in all the years I’ve been covering the NFL — nobody will ever top Tom Landry from my eight years in Dallas — and his players loved him and the fans loved him.

But a deal is a deal: Ryan failed to deliver.

He not only didn’t get the Jets to the Super Bowl, he never won the AFC East. Even worse, the Patriots won it all six times. He was 4-2 in the playoffs, but never had a home playoff game.

So, it’s fitting that Belichick and Tom Brady, always in Ryan's way, provide the competition Sunday in what will surely be Ryan's final home game. Belichick is the coach Ryan always wanted to be, and Brady is the quarterback he never had.

Jets fans will hold a going-away party for Ryan at MetLife Stadium at the same time they will be pleading with Woody Johnson to fire Idzik. Even so, Ryan must be held accountable for keeping the Jets’ Super Bowl drought alive. It is now at 46 seasons with no end in sight. He deserves an ovation, but a victory lap is definitely out of the question.

Flash back to Jan. 22, 2009. Two days after Barack Obama’s inauguration. Ryan, looking pretty dapper in a green striped tie, was at the podium at the Jets’ big auditorium in Florham Park making promises that earned him instant cult hero status from Jets fans.

“With all the cameras and all that, I was looking for our new president back there,” he said. “You know, I think we’ll get to meet him in the next couple of years anyway.”

Right then, we knew this was going to be fun.

“I’m not afraid of expectations,” he said. “My goal is to win the Super Bowl. It’s not to win just X number of games.”

And . . .

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“We want to be known as the most physical football team in the NFL,” he said. “The players will have each other’s back, and if you take a swipe at one of ours, we’ll take a swipe at two of yours.”

And of course, months later, there was, “I never came here to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings.”

He was fined for flipping the bird to Miami fans at a mixed martial arts event. He was fined for cursing at heckling Jets fans. He was fined for cursing at the officials. He was a foul-mouthed trash talker perfect for New York.

But when you talk big, you look small when you don’t produce. Except for coaches who walk away on their own, Ryan will be leaving because he didn’t win enough.

He came close to the Super Bowl, but no closer than Walt Michaels did when he lost to the Dolphins in the 1982 AFC title game, and no closer than Bill Parcells did when he lost to the Broncos in the 1998 AFC title game. Ryan made it to the conference championship game in each of his first two years with Mark Sanchez, and it looked like they were just getting started together.

But it was just the beginning of the end.

Those first two years were wild. Rex came so close to backing up his words. In the 2009 title game, the Jets held a 17-6 second-quarter lead on the Colts in Indianapolis, but Ryan’s beloved defense gave up an 80-yard drive to Peyton Manning in just 58 seconds with the TD coming on a 16-yard pass to Austin Collie with 1:13 left in the half. The Jets were then outscored 17-0 in the second half.

Ryan got a pass on that collapse. The Jets had barely made it into the playoffs with a 9-7 record and stayed alive deeper into January than anybody could have imagined.

That summer, Ryan signed his name on an ESPN bus and added, “Soon to be champs.”

He came close after first looking pretty foolish when the Jets lost in New England, 45-3, in December. He buried the football next to the practice field — an old Belichick trick — and then Ryan did his best coaching job. The Jets finished 11-5, beat Manning in the wild-card round in Indy and then eliminated Belichick and Brady the next week in Foxborough in the second-greatest victory in team history.

Again, Ryan was one step from the Super Bowl.

Again, he could not deliver.

The Jets celebrated in Foxborough like they had won the Super Bowl and then didn’t show up for the first half of the title game in Pittsburgh. That’s on Ryan. He didn’t have the Jets ready to play. They trailed, 24-0, before finally getting some points on a field goal right before the half. They displayed a lot of heart in the second half, missed a great opportunity when they couldn’t score after a first-and-goal at the two early in the fourth quarter, and lost 24-19.

Nothing has gone right since that Pittsburgh game: 8-8, 6-10, 8-8, 3-11. Four straight years out of the playoffs. Ryan has received no help the last two years from Idzik, who has allowed Jets fans to appreciate former GM Mike Tannenbaum, who at least tried.

It will pain Ryan to leave without the ring. He made a promise he couldn't keep.

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NY Jets owner Woody Johnson needs to clean house, hand reins to Patriots duo of Nick Caserio and Josh McDaniels (Manish Mehta) New York Daily News December 20, 2014

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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/mehta-jets-owner-hand-reins-patriots-duo-article-1.2051996

Nobody really knows what Woody Johnson is thinking in the final days of the Jets’ nightmarish season, but there’s a growing sense that he’s about to hit the reset button on his wayward franchise.

If/when pink slips are doled out on Black Monday (Dec. 29), Johnson’s first order of business should be to bust through the gates of the Evil Empire and poach a pair of Bill Belichick’s buddies.

A culture change is needed after John Idzik created a paranoid environment devoid of trust. His many failures have enraged a frustrated fan base demanding his ouster. The GM has been a dark cloud hovering over two lost seasons.

Johnson should turn to Patriots player personnel director Nick Caserio and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to spearhead a Jets revival. The owner will be flooded with names of prospective GM and head coach candidates in the coming weeks, but Caserio and McDaniels bring the winning pedigree, intellect and innovation needed to set a course in the right direction.

The smart take from the strong. This tandem of 30-something stars makes perfect sense.

Caserio is everything Idzik isn’t: A football man with a coaching and scouting background.

McDaniels is on the rise again after hitting road bumps as a first-time head coach in Denver a few years ago.

Getting Belichick’s blessing to cross over to a loathed division rival might be a hurdle, but there’s a sense in league circles that the Patriots head coach would not stand in the way of either one of his protégés given the right situations.

Johnson would offer an ideal environment for Caserio and McDaniels, former college teammates and close friends, to flourish. The Jets are flush with salary-cap space (about $40 million in 2015) and opportunity.

Caserio, Belichick’s right-hand man on the personnel side for the past six years, can shape the Jets’ swiss-cheese roster the right way. McDaniels, one of the league’s creative, young offensive minds, can groom a hand-picked franchise quarterback.

Johnson’s identity is wrapped in his team. His ensemble for family holiday pictures in front of the fireplace: A sharp suit and Jets baseball cap, for Pete’s sake. The bad vibes surrounding the organization since Idzik took over genuinely bother him.

Johnson wants to be kept in the loop and feel a part of the action, but he doesn’t meddle. He’d give Caserio and McDaniels the freedom to rebuild the team as they see fit.

The failed Eric Mangini experiment shouldn’t deter Johnson from going back to the Patriots. Mangini, after all, picked most of the key players on the Jets teams that went to consecutive AFC Championship games with Rex Ryan in 2009 and 2010. Johnson fired Mangini after a 9-7 season, because the coach didn’t have an open line of communication. The owner’s lone requirement: Don’t keep secrets from him.

People who know Caserio don’t believe that will be an issue. The Kraft family, like Johnson, is regularly at practice. Caserio’s reputation as a quirky soul — he’s a workout freak who eats dessert only once a year (on his birthday) — might be embellished, according to friends, but there’s no denying his family, faith and job are his priorities. Johnson, too, has been labeled quirky. It might be the perfect fit.

There are executives around the league, however, who aren’t sure whether Caserio would want to work for the Jets due to the cut-throat nature of the rivalry. Others wonder if he’ll ever leave the Patriots’ nest.

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Caserio reportedly spurned a GM offer from the Dolphins in January, but friends believe that was due to Miami’s cluttered front-office framework rather than any hesitation to leave the Patriots.

At 38, Caserio has an impeccable resume. He gained Belichick’s trust over the past 13 years with a no-nonsense approach and a keen eye for talent. His responsibilities for one of the league’s most successful franchises: Personnel assistant (2001), offensive assistant (2002), area scout (2003), director of pro personnel (2004-06), wide receivers coach (2007) and his current role as the personnel head.

Caserio’s diversified portfolio is a reflection of the Patriots’ cross-training methods that encourage young assistants to experience all sides of football operations. (McDaniels’ career in New England began as a personnel assistant and defensive coaching assistant.)

Caserio is respected in scouting circles as a smart evaluator with a tireless work ethic and focus. Inside the building, he’s as honest and trustworthy as they come. He has helped bolster the Patriots’ roster since climbing to the top of the personnel department in 2009, drafting offensive contributors Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski, Nate Solder, Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley and re-tooling the defense with Devin McCourty, Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower.

Belichick’s fingerprints are all over personnel decisions, but Caserio has had an unmistakably strong voice through the years. Although nobody is truly ever ready to be in a big-time leadership position (ask Obama, Clinton or Bush), Caserio has the requisite experience to thrive as a GM.

His long-standing friendship with McDaniels should expedite the rebuilding process. Caserio was the starting quarterback at John Carroll University (Ohio), while McDaniels became his wide receiver after getting beat out at QB. They trust each other implicitly.

McDaniels, 38, has rebuilt his image after flaming out with the Broncos. He channeled his inner-Belichick with disastrous results. McDaniels, who was 33 at the time, was fired 12 games into his second season after failing to report a team official for videotaping a 49ers practice. (The Broncos and the NFL concluded that McDaniels didn’t authorize the taping.)

McDaniels was the Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2011 for a team that suffered injuries to the starting QB, RB, No. 1 WR and a few offensive linemen.

“I’ve been around a lot of guys. . . . but I thought he was one of the best gameday callers,” said Ravens secondary coach Steve Spagnuolo, who was the head coach in St. Louis at the time. “He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He was very assertive during the game. There was no hesitation. . . . It’s real hard when you lose your quarterback. It was a difficult year, but I think he grew from it.”

McDaniels, the offensive architect of the Matt Cassel-led Patriots that went 11-5 in 2008, returned to New England and reset his career after the coaching purge in St. Louis.

People close to McDaniels believe he learned valuable lessons in Denver that will serve him well the second time around. He’s no Belichick — and won’t try to be again — but plenty of other young coaches, including Belichick, have fallen victim to mimicking mentors in their first gigs.

Belichick learned from his train wreck in Cleveland. McDaniels’ friends are convinced that he’s smart enough to make the appropriate corrections. His supreme self-confidence, however, will never wane. Johnson, or any other owner, shouldn’t want it any other way.

McDaniels is fully aware that his second chance might be his last, so the circumstances must be right. The Jets make sense if Caserio, who shares the same team-building philosophies, is part of the deal.

Johnson feels the pain of a fan base fed up with losing. The frustration has manifested itself in myriad ways.

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It’s time to make a bold move to reverse the fortunes of his franchise.

It’s time to take from the strong.

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Rex Ryan deserves some Christmas cheer from Jets fans in what could be his MetLife Stadium finale (Mike Lupica) New York Daily news December 21, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/lupica-jets-fans-merry-rex-mas-article-1.2052407

For the last time, and last home game, there should be a way for Jets fans to stand and cheer Rex Ryan Sunday at MetLife Stadium, even if Belichick and Brady come in and blow the doors off the place one more time.

There should be a way to do that even if the Jets go to 3-12 and even if they end up 3-13, which means Rex would end with the kind of record Bill Parcells began with in Jersey a long time ago, at Giants Stadium.

The whole thing has gone bad for Rex in the end, and all you have to do is look at the record and some of the losses this season.

He started with Mark Sanchez quarterbacking his first two years in the pros and ends with Geno Smith quarterbacking HIS first two years in the pros, and everybody can see that compared to Geno, the young Sanchez was the young Namath. And Revis left and Tebow was here briefly and the Jets became more of a sideshow than they'd ever been.

The shining moment, for the coach and for Jets fans, really came in that second season, when they went into Foxborough in the playoffs and beat a 14-2 Patriots team straight up, and ended up in another championship game. Now that all seems like some kind of distant memory, way too soon.

Rex wasn't any kind of coaching giant, the way Parcells of the Giants was, even though Rex talked like one sometimes — or a lot — and acted as if he had come here from the Lombardi family.

He wasn’t Tom Coughlin, who didn't just make it to two championship games, but won it all with the Giants, twice.

But when he first hit town, in the shadow of the Giants’ first Super Bowl win over Belichick and Brady, with the Jets feeling less relevant and more like a JV team around here than ever, he made Jets fans feel their team mattered again. And that matters. It matters even if he became one more Jets coach since Weeb Ewbank who couldn't take them back to the big game.

It won’t matter in a week that most Jets fans, if polled, would keep their coach over their general manager, or that there are smart people I know in the National Football League, working in the league right now, who still think that the problem with Rex is that he hasn't had players, and for a long time.

Barring some kind of post-Christmas miracle, or Woody Johnson crossing up the whole world and keeping Rex again and firing John Idzik, he goes on the Monday after the season.

There still hasn’t been anybody quite like him coaching or managing a New York or Jersey sports team in a very long time. You know something else? There have been a lot less likeable guys than Rex who won a lot more around here than he did.

Did he worry too much about what the media said and wrote and thought? He did. He worried way too much. Phil Jackson, who has always acted like the coolest guy in the room, did the same thing on Twitter the other night with Charlie Barkley. “I’m not dead yet,”

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Rex said the other day, on his way out the door, and one more time what he really sounded like was the life of the party.

Win or lose Sunday — and you know the way to bet on that — Jets fans should remember where they were when he hit town, at the top of his voice, and not just look at where they are now.

The Jets may get better next season with a new coach, will probably get better. They need somebody next time around who has more of an interest in offense in pro football other than finding ways to stop it. But you always have to be careful for what you wish for: Jim Harbaugh, who got treated like some kind of genius for taking the 49ers to three straight championship games — and one Super Bowl — is finishing a season in which he has somehow managed to turn Colin Kaepernick into Geno.

You cheer Rex Ryan today at MetLife Stadium, one reason is this: When the cheering for him stops, it gets a lot quieter around here, and a lot less fun.

Yanks take baby steps, Isles be seeing you & Happy Holidays to you all....

- If the Yankees are going to make a mistake with a pitcher, I would much rather they make it with a kid like Nate Eovaldi, not yet 25, than another guy who’s already passed 30.

And somebody catch me up here:

When did Martin Prado become something other than a talented — and overpaid guy — who could play a lot of positions?

You know where I come at the whole Max Scherzer thing, as many times as we hear the Yankees aren’t going to sign him:

I am going to believe he is going somewhere else when he actually goes somewhere else, and then the Yankees will be chasing their tails, and throwing stupid money at starting pitchers all over again.

But if this deal with the Marlins actually signals real change in the thinking around the Yankees, and with their baseball operation, then good for them.

If the Yankees could still buy their way to the World Series, then they would do that.

They can’t.

They have spent more than three billion dollars — billion, with a big old B — since the Subway Series of 2000 and have won one World Series.

They are still the only $200 million team to ever win a World Series, in 2009.

They have made it to two Series in the last decade, while the Giants have won three, the Red Sox have won three, and the Cardinals have won twice.

The way they used to do things no longer works.

It is time to try it another way, whether you think the deal with the Marlins is a bad one or not.

- There was a time around here when there was only one big story to cover in the spring, and that was the New York Islanders of the early 1980s, one of the great teams with “New York” in its name, that we have ever had.

The Yankees of 1949-through-1953 once won five World Series in a row.

Those Islanders, the Islanders of Gillies and Nystrom and Bossy and Smith, of Al Arbour and a genius of a front-office man named Bill Torrey, won four Stanley Cups in a row, starting in 1980.

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It means a team that should always be remembered sometimes is far too easy to forget.

New York sports really has become the capital of the overpaid and the under-producing, hasn’t it?

- So Phil Jackson gets a case of hurt feelings on Thursday night watching — and listening to — Charles Barkley on TNT.

And then Barkley says that Phil is too old to be on Twitter, among other things.

At least Phil then showed some kind of sense of humor on Friday when he tweeted out this:

“Sir Chuck is a funny guy...too bad I didn’t see his comment last nite. It was past my bedtime and my twitter curfew had been imposed.”

Next Phil will be calling radio shows if he doesn’t like what people are saying about him, or his triangle offense, or his trades.

Or his basketball team.

He’s been out of town for a long time, so somebody needs to remind him it’s a hardball league in New York, and he needs to wear a helmet.

Or maybe hit up his owner for a few extra million dollars and buy a thicker skin.

Of course it’s early in whatever is going to pass for the Jackson Era at Madison Square Garden, and Jackson has had little chance so far to remake the roster in his own image, other than a trade involving Tyson Chandler that he needs to stop defending.

Still: In the words of somebody who’s actually sounded like a real Zen master for a long time in this city — Yogi — it sure can get late early around here.

An NFL executive from out of town told me not long ago that everybody has the kind of bad drafts the Giants had, back-to-back, a few years ago, even the Patriots.

“But the Patriots had Superman,” the guy said.

He meant Brady.

- You look at what the Knicks have become since Patrick Ewing stopped playing basketball for them, and you look back on the 1990s — a different kind of glory years for Knicks fans than the ones in the early ’70s — and you appreciate the talent and the heart and toughness of Patrick even more.

Once the Knicks were built around that.

Now they’re built around Carmelo.

Finally:

Merry Christmas today to all the people who still read the Daily News, and who care about it, and count on it.

And Merry Christmas to the people who edit it and write it and lay it out and sell it and still get it out every day, even in a famous blackout one time.

Has the business changed since I entered it in what feels like a thousand years ago, when I was still in college?

It has.

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We have lost too many papers and too many good people and what was once a wide world of possibilities for kids like the kid I was, the one who came to New York because Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill were here — and then were right down the hall from me on 42nd St. — has gotten smaller.

But at its heart, the business and the paper are still tremendous, even when we all swing and miss.

Look at the way this paper has led the charge, more than any paper in this country, on guns, and the way we have taken the fight right to the NRA.

Look at the good fight we continue to fight on horse carriages, being the advocate for the good working men and women of this city who ought to have the mayor of the city as their advocate, and do not.

Look at the way the sports section of the paper, and especially our I-team, led the coverage of Alex Rodriguez, all the way until Major League Baseball finally shot him out of a cannon.

We were doing what the paper has always done, and is supposed to do.

We did it again a few weeks ago, with the “We Can’t Breathe” front page that was shown around the country, and the world.

Somehow, through it all, in the digital age and the age of the internet, there on the subway, heading into the heart of the city, people are reading the New York Daily News.

Merry Christmas to them, and to anybody taking the time to read our paper today.

We aren’t going anywhere.

Neither should you.

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NEW YORK TIMES

Guided by Architect of Explosive Offenses, the Jets Sputter (Tom Pedulla) New York Times December 21, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/sports/football/guided-by-architect-of-explosive-offenses-the-jets-sputter.html?ref=football&_r=0

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — When the Jets hired Marty Mornhinweg before last season as Coach Rex Ryan’s third offensive coordinator in three years, they seemed to have finally found the right person to revitalize the unit.

The Jets finished 25th in total offense in 2011, leading to Brian Schottenheimer’s departure. When Tony Sparano, a former offensive line coach, was given his first opportunity to be a coordinator the next season, they slipped to 30th among the N.F.L.’s 32 teams.

Mornhinweg seemed to possess every quality the Jets needed, beginning with his reputation for handling quarterbacks. He coached quarterbacks for Green Bay when Brett Favre won the league’s Most Valuable Player award and led the Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI to close the 1996 season. In all, Mornhinweg oversaw five Pro Bowl passers.

In 1998, Mornhinweg’s second season as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, they became the third team to lead the N.F.L. in passing and rushing in the same season.

There are about 206 trillion ways the season could end. Find your team’s path to the playoffs with this interactive simulator.

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He continued to enhance his reputation for play-calling with the Philadelphia Eagles in the next decade. The Eagles set a franchise record for scoring in three consecutive seasons, culminating in 439 points in 2010. They set a team record with 6,386 net yards in 2011; their quarterbacks established yet another record with 367 completions in 2012.

The defense-oriented Ryan, all but announcing the end of the ground-and-pound philosophy he had espoused when the Jets hired him in 2009, said he wanted Mornhinweg to bring an “aggressive, attacking style.”

The results, though, have not been close to what they envisioned.

The Jets ranked 29th with an average of 18.1 points a game last season as they dealt with miscues by the rookie quarterback Geno Smith, who started all 16 games.

With Smith continuing to falter and Michael Vick diminished at age 34, the Jets have remained 29th but are averaging only 16.4 points entering Sunday’s home game against the New England Patriots.

Worse, the Jets, who were 8-8 last season, have fallen to 3-11, and some players are disappointed and confused.

“We definitely thought we’d be nowhere close to this situation,” said Jeff Cumberland, a veteran tight end. “We felt we’d be a playoff-bound team.”

Vick thrived in Mornhinweg’s West Coast offense in Philadelphia and was honored as the league’s comeback player of the year in 2010.

When asked why Mornhinweg was suddenly falling short of expectations, Vick said: “I don’t know. I kind of look around and see the same type of talent.”

When Cumberland was asked about the play-calling, he declined to comment.

With two weeks to go, here’s the N.F.L. playoff picture for every team still in the hunt.

The Jets’ persistent problems are perplexing because General Manager John Idzik aimed to upgrade the offense.

The team signed Eric Decker, one of the top wide receivers available in free agency. The Jets made safety Calvin Pryor their sixth consecutive defensive player drafted in the first round, and they used their second-round pick on Jace Amaro, a prolific tight end at Texas Tech. Chris Johnson was signed with the belief that he would provide a pass-catching threat out of the backfield. Percy Harvin, a potentially explosive wideout, was acquired from the Seattle Seahawks midway through the season.

Yet the Jets rank last in passing offense (168.9 yards), 25th in total offense (316.1 yards), 21st in third-down conversions (39 percent) and tied for 30th in red zone offense (41 percent). The glaring exception is rushing offense. The Jets place second, averaging 147.1 yards, after finishing sixth in 2013.

Statistics and Mornhinweg’s recent comments suggest a philosophical divide between him and Ryan, although they deny it. Ryan has said numerous times that he adopts a run-first mentality. He praised Mornhinweg’s game plan after the Jets rushed 49 times and Smith, rejoining the lineup after he was benched because of crucial turnovers, was limited to 7-of-13 passing in a 16-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 1.

Before he joined the Jets, Mornhinweg was known as a coordinator with a let-it-fly approach. He emphasized on Thursday that he had not lost that mind-set.

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“In this league, you need to pass the ball very efficiently to score points, typically,” he said. “Now, every game is just a little bit different. Certainly, the passing game, you have to get that going at some point to win on a consistent basis.”

Mornhinweg said he opened each Jets season with his customary offense “and then chose to play a certain style from that point on.”

His style changed, he said, because “that was our strength and kind of how we are built, and trying to take care of the ball just a little bit better.”

When asked if Ryan had urged a greater reliance on running, Mornhinweg said, “Rex and I talk each week, every day.”

Mornhinweg would almost surely have introduced more creativity to the playbook if Smith had made improvement in his second season, as the Jets had hoped.

But Smith has completed only 57.8 percent of his passes (182 of 315) and has thrown more interceptions (12) than touchdown passes (nine).

“His challenge is to play at a high level on a consistent basis,” Mornhinweg said. “It’s that simple.”

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METRO NEW YORK

Jets - Patriots: 3 things to watch for (Kristian Dyer) Metro New York December 20, 2014

http://www.metro.us/new-york/jets-patriots-3-things-to-watch-for/zsJnlt---iK3ha3ZZGIPfg/

Heave ho, two in a row. That's the dream for most Jets fans right now.

The 3-11 Jets actually have some momentum after a win last Sunday against the equally bad, equally hapless Titans. The 16-11 win was ugly, and the execution was poor, but the Jets showed plenty of heart and fight in the victory. Of course, some fans were hoping for a loss to better their draft stock.

This coming Sunday’s game is one that Jets fans should show up for and should want to win, however.

In all likelihood, Sunday will represent the final home game for head coach Rex Ryan, who appears destined to be six seasons and done here in New York. That his last game at MetLife Stadium should come against the Patriots, the team's biggest riva,l and against Bill Belichick - his coaching nemesis, is only fitting.

It would also be fitting and proper for Ryan to go out with a win against the Patriots, the team he clearly relished beating the most during his six years with the Jets.

Three Things to Watch When the Jets Play the Patriots:

1. Passing Grades for the Pats

It isn't the vaunted Patriots attack of old but quarterback Tom Brady is still getting it done. This is a far more efficient passing offense than prolific, as Brady has his best completion percentage since 2011. His 32 touchdowns puts him on pace for the most since 2011 as well, a year he threw 39 touchdowns. The way he is playing right now, the 37-year old Brady might be in a position to play into his 40s, something he recently stated he would like to do.

2.The Revis Impact

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This past offseason, Jets fans desperately hoped for the return of Darrelle Revis, the prodigal son who was traded in 2013 then was available via free agency this past offseason. Revis is loved by Jets fans, despite multiple holdouts during his time here and was very much wanted back. Revis supposedly had interest in the Jets but that love was not reciprocated, opening the door for a deal with the Patriots. A season ago, the Patriots pass defense was No. 18 overall, giving up 239 yards per game in the air. They are currently four spots worse and are allowing 248.7 yards per game. The Pats still seem to love him though.

“When you see a guy on film you see his game performance and all that, but when you’re around a person on a daily basis like we have been since late April, he’s a really impressive guy, works hard, very dedicated, doesn’t say a lot, but he always does his job and he’s working hard to do his job and do it better,” Belichick said. “He’s a good teammate, good in the locker room. Guys really like being around him and working with him, but he’s very competitive and he forces everybody to be better – the receivers and the defensive backs can watch his preparation and watch his technique. He’s good. He’s done a good job for our football team, on and off the field, in a lot of different areas. He’s been a real asset for us.”

3. Battling the Pats

It seems that no matter the record, for the most part these two teams have played each other well over the years, including the home team winning each of their matchups last year. In Week 7 of this season, the Jets very nearly pulled off a big win, losing at Gillette Stadium, 27-25.

“Well I think part of it is that we know each other very well,” quarterback Geno Smith said. “Our schemes kind of are similar, but are different in many ways. I think Rex always does a good job of getting to the quarterback and keeping pressure on their quarterback, and getting off the field. On offense, I think we ran the ball well the previous three games. Obviously, taking care of the football and giving ourselves a chance to be in the game.”

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SATURDAY’S SPORTS TRANSACTIONS

BASEBALL

American League

CLEVELAND INDIANS — Agreed to terms with LHP Scott Downs on a minor league contract.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS — Released OF Shawn O'Malley.

NEW YORK YANKEES — Designated RHP Preston Claiborne for assignment.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Designated RHP Brandon Gomes for assignment.

TEXAS RANGERS — Released RHP Ben Rowen.

National League

LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Designated OF Kyle Jensen for assignment.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES — Designated RHP Preston Guilmet for assignment. Released RHP Josh Lindblom.

SAN DIEGO PADRES — Agreed to terms with RHP Brandon Morrow on a one-year contract.

BASKETBALL

National Basketball Association

NEW ORLEANS PELICANS — Recalled G Russ Smith from Fort Wayne (NBADL).

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FOOTBALL

National Football League

CLEVELAND BROWNS — Placed DB Tashaun Gipson on injured reserve. Signed LB Scott Solomon from the practice squad.

OAKLAND RAIDERS — Placed CB Tarell Brown on injured reserve. Signed LB Spencer Hadley from the practice squad.

HOCKEY

National Hockey League

BUFFALO SABRES — Recalled C Mikhail Grigorenko from Rochester (AHL).

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS — Placed F Boone Jenner on injured reserve. Recalled C Sean Collins from Springfield (AHL).

DETROIT RED WINGS — Assigned D Xavier Ouellet to Grand Rapids (AHL). Recalled G Tom McCollum from Grand Rapids.

NEW JERSEY DEVILS — Placed F Mike Cammalleri on injured reserve, retroactive to Dec. 13. Recalled D Adam Larsson and F Mike Sislo from Albany (AHL).

NEW YORK ISLANDERS — Reassigned F Sebastian Collberg from Stockton (ECHL) to Bridgeport (AHL).

WASHINGTON CAPITALS — Recalled F Caleb Herbert from South Carolina (ECHL) to Hershey (AHL).

American Hockey League

ALBANY DEVILS — Assigned F Myles Bell to Evansville (ECHL).

LEHIGH VALLEY PHANTOMS — Recalled G Martin Ouellette from Reading (ECHL).

ST. JOHN'S ICECAPS — Assigned D Ralfs Freibergs to Ontario (ECHL).

ECHL

ECHL — Suspended Evansville F Kevin Harvey one game and fined Allen LW Jessey Astles an undisclosed amount for their actions during recent games.

ELMIRA JACKALS — Loaned G Travis Fullerton to Rochester (AHL). Added G Ian Ansel as emergency backup.

INDY FUEL — Loaned G Cody Reichard to Grand Rapids (AHL). Added G Jordan Tibbett as emergency backup.

ONTARIO REIGN — Returned D Ryan Parent to St. John's (AHL).

TOLEDO WALLEYE — Loaned G Jeff Lerg to Lake Erie (AHL). Added G Justin Sand as emergency backup.

UTAH GRIZZLIES — Traded G Joe Howe to Reading for future considerations.

COLLEGE

NCAA — Suspended Wake Forest men's basketball G Mitchell Wilbekin an undetermined amount for an undisclosed violation.

FLORIDA — Announced men's basketball F Alex Murphy is eligible to play.

WAKE FOREST — Suspended men's basketball F Cornelius Hudson and G Rondale Watson one game.

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