Jets News 12-17

Aging QB Brett Favre wearing down near end of Jets' season
BY RICH CIMINI
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Tuesday, December 16th 2008, 10:10 PM


Antonelli/News

Brett Favre is showing his age as even QB admits his arm is not nearly as dangerous as it used to be.

It was a four-alarm quote by Brett Favre, but it barely registered Sunday because of the Shaun Ellis miracle/Dick Jauron madness: "Maybe I don't have the arm I once had. I don't know."

That was Favre's explanation of his third-quarter interception against the Bills, an ill-advised deep ball to Jerricho Cotchery that needed to go at least 50 yards - and went only 45 in the air. There isn't a late-30s quarterback alive who hasn't lost something on his fastball, but to actually hear Favre acknowledge his legendary right arm isn't what it used to be, well, it conjured up memories of Willie Mays, 1973.

"(He) just couldn't quite get it to where we wanted to get it to," said Eric Mangini, commenting on Favre's league-leading 17th interception.

Let's face it: Tuesday's Pro Bowl selection notwithstanding, Favre looks shot. He's 39, so it's quite possible he's wearing down in the homestretch. That wouldn't be a new trend; he's had some rough Decembers in recent years.

Against the Bills, Favre struggled with his accuracy, even on short and intermediate passes. Over the last three games, his completion percentage is 57.7, way too low for a quarterback operating a dink-and-dunk passing attack. In the same stretch, which happens to coincide with the Jets' funk, his passer rating is 61.0, lower than the mistake-laden patch in October when he threw seven interceptions in a three-game span.

"He cycled back," said Mangini, alluding to Favre's midseason rally. "I assume (he'll be) cycling back again."

They'd better hope so. Otherwise, the Jets will be cycling back to also-ran status. They need Favre more than ever in these final two games. With the defense springing new leaks every week, they probably will have to win high-scoring games to make the playoffs. It'll be tough to pull that off with a quarterback averaging less than seven yards per attempt, as Favre has done in each of the last three games.

But don't count him out; the man is a winner. He never - repeat, never - has lost the final two games in any regular season, which is amazing. His record in those games is 26-6, a testament to his ability to rise up in pressure situations.

This will be his greatest challenge. He's slumping, his body is aching (presumably) and things are cracking around him. For perhaps the last time, Favre tries to will a team into the postseason. Is it in him?

WEST TOAST: The Jets, 0-3 on the West Coast, will try to snap the losing streak Sunday in Seattle. Other East Coast teams are 8-1 on the Left Coast (20-16 since 2004), so it's obviously not a travel thing; it's a Jets thing. They will leave Friday, as they did for the three previous trips. Mangini wanted to switch it to a Saturday departure, but there were airline complications....Struggling P Reggie Hodges appears safe for this week. The club gave serious consideration to signing another punter....Mangini's timeout with 2:06 remaining was a clever clock-management move; it enticed Jauron into calling a pass. If Mangini had let it run to the two-minute warning, the Bills probably would've kept it on the ground - and there would've been no miracle win....It will be Mike Holmgren's final home game as the Seahawks' coach, which should add emotion to the game. Holmgren, preparing for his coaching sabbatical, said he's planning to walk a lap around the field after the game, thanking fans.
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Watching Favre From Baghdad Evokes Memories



By JAMES GLANZ
Published: December 16, 2008
BAGHDAD ? After nearly five years of covering the conflict here, I am leaving Iraq soon for a saner assignment. Having seen and felt more during those years than I can process or express for now, I am spending a lot of time trying to understand, really understand, why the Green Bay Packers let Brett Favre go to the Jets.

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Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times
James Glanz, the Baghdad bureau chief for The Times, had a rare chance Sunday to watch Brett Favre and the Jets on TV.



I am a Packers fan from birth, and my father covered some of the great Lombardi teams as a TV sports anchor out of Madison, Wis., when I was in grade school. Vince Lombardi had what now might be called a Favre-like ability to awe and charm at the same time. At Dad?s first news conference in Green Bay, before he knew anyone with the team, Lombardi noticed the new guy 10 rows deep in the gallery and stepped off the podium to offer his hand and that big grin. He said, ?I?m Vince Lombardi.?

?Like I didn?t know,? Dad said Sunday, when I phoned him from Baghdad to catch up and talk a little football. ?I almost had to take out my driver?s license to tell him what my name was.?

The news conference was a first lesson in genuine star power. There would be many more for my father, Irv Glanz, as well as a few for me. But I hadn?t called him to talk about the old days; I wanted to tell him I?d watched the Jets beat the Bills on Sunday after years of not being able to see regular-season football games on satellite television in Baghdad.

A colleague once likened reporting here to sending dispatches from Mars. Sunday was like watching the N.F.L. on Mars. Imagine sitting in a Mars lander on the endless dunes and watching Leon Washington take the ball from Favre and break off a 47-yard run for a touchdown as if he were the only player in a zero-gravity suit. At that moment, the remote and chilly reaches of the solar system all seemed to be friendly places, even if you were not really a Jets fan.

It was so much fun that I asked Mudhafer al-Husseini, an athletic young Iraqi in our newsroom, to stop by my office and watch some of the game. (As the Baghdad bureau chief for The Times, I run a compound of about 120 Iraqi translators, reporters, guards, drivers and other staff.) Mudhafer was at first distracted, because Sunday was the day an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President Bush, and our Western correspondents were continuously calling Mudhafer?s cellphone to ask what it all meant.

When his telephone had stopped ringing, Mudhafer said with classic Iraqi bluntness, ?I never liked this game.? He looked blankly at the screen as Favre faked a handoff and threw deep to David Clowney, who made an astonishing one-handed catch. A few plays later, Favre made one of his wild heaves downfield and was intercepted. Unmoved, Mudhafer said, ?I like soccer and I can understand it.?

But the truth is, Mudhafer is a sports fan in the transcendent sense. I explained the rules and what was happening as the game went along, and by the time J. P. Losman fumbled and Shaun Ellis scored ? looking like a large man stumbling dangerously down a hill ? Mudhafer was jumping and yelling with me.

?I like this game now, because it holds your breath!? he said.

Ignoring the broadcasters, Mudhafer also recognized immediately that the cameras were framing the game with Favre?s expressions: hands-on-hips chagrin when he threw the interception; lowered eyes on the sideline as Buffalo seemed close to running out the clock; and the leprechaun hops when Ellis lurched into the end zone.

That was another lesson of the Lombardi years, when his nervous pacing, plumes of agitated breath, Jovian scowls and big grin told you where the game stood. Stars on that scale could win you games, and they did, but they also gave you the characters you needed for your personal narrative of the contest. Those narratives, not the newspaper stories or the play by play, turn a team logo into an institution with a history and a right to belong in a certain time and place.

The distance from Mesopotamia to the Meadowlands, about 6,000 miles, brings with it a certain perspective. After Mudhafer left, the crawler at the bottom of the TV screen gave the last in a dismal progression of scores for the Packers-Jaguars game: a 20-16 Green Bay loss.

I know that for the analytical minds of my profession, a final judgment on the Favre trade must wait for a range of subtleties involving the impending showdown with Chad Pennington and the Dolphins; the relative passer ratings of Favre and Aaron Rodgers, who is now under center for the Packers; and a million other factors. But in the Book of Titletown, the only thing that could possibly have justified forcing someone of Favre?s stature to leave for New York is an immediate and obvious swing in wins or some other stirring improvement.

The Packers, who went to the National Football Conference title game last year, are 5-9 and out of the playoffs. The Jets, who had four wins last year, are 9-5 and still in the hunt. This tells me that the football bureaucrats who let Favre go, and whose names I cannot keep straight over here, will see the wrath of the Packers? gods ? Lombardi presiding ? come down on their helmetless heads. Soon.

You can read Homer to see how that one ends. In a less epic vein, on Sunday, Dad retold the story of buying expensive golf shoes just before a tournament for Wisconsin sportscasters and Packers players, then shooting well and having his choice of the prizes laid out on a table. They included a nice pair of golf shoes for which he had no use. ?Vince came up and put his arm around me and said, ?Irv, take the golf shoes,? ? Dad said.

?I took the golf shoes,? he said.

 

FAVRE HAS TWO MORE GAMES TO DELIVER
Comments: 1Read Comments Leave a Comment Brett Favre



Last updated: 3:35 am
December 17, 2008
Posted: 3:10 am
December 17, 2008

THE Brett Favre experiment, which began 131 days ago when he stepped off a private plane in Cleveland, has come down to this: two games, eight quarters, 120 minutes of football.

If the JetsNew York Jets ' season is over when the final whistle blows in two weeks, the trade with Green Bay that brought Favre to New York can be considered nothing but an absolute failure. The Jets knew this was the risk when they made the deal last summer.

It was a bold move that rendered the future irrelevant. This was all about 2008. Chad PenningtonChad Pennington was jettisoned and Kellen ClemensKellen Clemens was shoved aside. It put the Jets on the back page, and sold jerseys and PSLs, but how great has Favre's impact been on the field?

Somehow, he made the Pro Bowl yesterday. But even the most ardent Jets supporter would admit that's the silliest trip to Hawaii since the Brady Bunch vacationed there.

Favre has had some memorable moments, from six touchdowns against the Cardinals to leading the Jets to overtime dramatics in Foxborough. In the past three weeks, though, his play has slipped, and so has the team.

His quarterback ratings in losses to Denver (60.9), San Francisco (60.8) and the miracle win over the Bills (61.4) are the worst healthy three-game stretch he's had since the end of the 2002 season.

Favre started strong Sunday but fizzled after the first quarter. He threw two interceptions, one off a wacky bounce that wasn't his fault, the other a bad decision to throw into double coverage, compounded by an underthrow. That gave him an NFL-leading 17 interceptions.

"I had him [but] underthrew it," Favre said Sunday after the 31-27 win. "Maybe I don't have the arm I used to have. I don't know."

The last part of that comment was off-handed, but it may have shown a sliver of self-doubt we haven't seen from Favre before, and rightfully so.

The 39-year-old quarterback badly missed wide open Dustin Keller on a third-down pass in the fourth quarter, and several other throws sailed out of his receivers' reach.

Don't tell me about what a great downfield passer Favre is, either. Of his deep passes (balls that traveled in the air 21 or more yards), he's completed 12 of 47 (26 percent) for 405 yards, five touchdowns and eight interceptions for a rating of 58.86.

Remember how Pennington was supposed to be such a terrible longball thrower. In 2006, his last full season as the Jets' starter, he completed 15 of 41 (37 percent) for 505 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions for a 92.98 rating.

Pennington's success in Miami has put Favre's performance under a more powerful microscope. Pennington is the fourth-rated passer in the NFL; Favre is 15th. This has spawned a what-if game among Jets fans: Would the Jets' record be 9-5 with Pennington instead of Favre?

It's impossible to know the answer, but if the ultimate doomsday scenario comes true for the Jets and Pennington knocks them out of the playoffs in two weeks, Eric Mangini and Mike Tannenbaum better go into hiding.

You can forget about 2009, too. You get the impression Deanna Favre isn't buying green bananas these days. Her husband sounds like a man on his last day of vacation: He's happy he made the trip, but he's ready to go home.

That leaves two weeks for Favre to either make the high hopes that walked off that plane with him in Cleveland a reality, or end another sad chapter in Jets history.

brian.costello@nypost.com

 

JETS SENDING LEAGUE-HIGH SEVEN TO HAWAII
Comments: 0 Read Comments Leave a Comment By BRIAN COSTELLO

Last updated: 3:34 am
December 17, 2008
Posted: 3:11 am
December 17, 2008

According to Pro Bowl voting, the JetsNew York Jets are the best team in the NFL.

A stunning seven Jets were named to the AFC Pro Bowl team yesterday, a year after the team had zero. The 9-5 Jets have the most Pro Bowlers in the NFL, even topping the defending Super Bowl champion and 11-3 Giants.

Guard Alan Faneca, nose tackle Kris Jenkins, running back Thomas JonesThomas Jones and kick returner Leon WashingtonLeon Washington were all selected as starters for February's game in Hawaii. Quarterback Brett Favre, center Nick Mangold and cornerback Darrelle Revis were chosen as reserves.



Seven Pro Bowlers is a franchise record, topping the previous mark of five set in 1982, '85 and '98.

"It's always positive to see guys get recognized individually," Jets coach Eric Mangini said on 1050-AM ESPN Radio yesterday.

It is the first trip to the Pro Bowl for Jones, Washington, Mangold and Revis. Favre is making his 10th Pro Bowl appearance, Faneca his eighth consecutive and Jenkins his fourth.

Mangini called each of the players yesterday on their day off to let them know of the honor. Mangold was on his way to the mall to do some Christmas shopping when he got the news.

"He hit me with it while I was sitting in the car and I kind of swerved off the road a little bit," the third-year center said. "It probably wasn't the smartest idea of answering that call then, but it was definitely exciting."

All of the players selected have joined the Jets during the Mangini/Mike Tannenbaum era of the last three years. Mangold (2006) and Revis (2007) were first-round picks, Washington a fourth-round pick (2006), Faneca a free-agent signee last winter, and Jones, Jenkins and Favre came in trades during the last two years.

Favre is the most surprising choice. In his first year as a Jet, the legend has been inconsistent. He joins the Colts' Peyton Manning and Jay Cutler from the Broncos as the AFC quarterbacks. However, Phillip Rivers, Chad Pennington and Matt Cassel have put up better numbers.

"I'm honored to be voted to the Pro Bowl again by my fans and peers but equally excited for my teammates," Favre said in a statement released by the Jets. "Considering my late start this summer, I'm proud of what this team has accomplished so far."

The Jets also had five players chosen as alternates. Defensive end Shaun Ellis and tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson are second alternates, and linebacker Calvin Pace, safety Kerry Rhodes and fullback Tony Richardson are third alternates
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Seven Jets and Six Giants make the Pro Bowl
by Dave Hutchinson and Mike Garafolo/The Star-Ledger
Tuesday December 16, 2008, 9:08 PM

Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Both Jeff Feagles (left) and John Carney made the Pro Bowl, along with four other Giants and an NFL-high seven Jets. Carney, 44, is the oldest player ever selected to a Pro Bowl.A year ago, only one Giants or Jets player -- Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora -- earned a spot in the Pro Bowl.
But this season, with the two teams sitting atop their respective divisions and both quite possibly headed for the postseason, is a marked contrast. The Jets placed a league-high and franchise-record seven players in the Pro Bowl and the Giants will send an NFC-best six to Hawaii.

"I'm very excited to say the least," said Jets kick returner Leon Washington, who was chosen in large part for his NFL-high 10 plays of 40 yards or more. "When you work really hard in the offseason and you really prepare yourself ... to see the hard work pay off is gratifying. It's special. It's really special."

The Giants, Titans and Vikings each had six players selected for the game, which will be played in Honolulu on Feb. 8.

Guard Alan Faneca, defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, running back Thomas Jones and Washington are starters.

Faneca is making his eighth consecutive trip to Hawaii, all as a starter. Jenkins is going to his fourth Pro Bowl. Jones, a ninth-year pro and the leading rusher in the AFC with 1,222 yards and a career-high 13 touchdowns, and Washington are first-time selections.

Among the reserves, quarterback Brett Favre was picked for the 10th time, notable at least in part because he beat out Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington. Two other Jets -- cornerback Darrelle Revis and center Nick Mangold -- are making their first appearance.

A year ago the Giants used their one Pro Bowl selection (Umenyiora) as fuel for their argument that they were being disrespected. This season they were shown nothing but respect.

Quarterback Eli Manning will make his first trip to Hawaii in his fifth NFL season. Center Shaun O'Hara, guard Chris Snee and defensive end Justin Tuck were also selected to their first Pro Bowl. Snee and Tuck were voted starters.

"You always want to be considered to be elite and play to the best of your abilities to be recognized across the league for what you are doing," Manning said in the team's press release. "It is such an honor having great players that are out there to be chosen by the fans and by the players and coaches."

Even the old guys got in on the act. Punter Jeff Feagles and kicker John Carney, who was a free agent until a few days before the start of the regular season, were selected for the first time in more than a decade. Carney, 44, is the oldest player ever selected for the Pro Bowl, and set a record for longest gap between appearances (14 years), edging out the 42-year-old Feagles for what would have been a record 13-year gap.

"I was speaking with Jeff earlier today and I thought there was an age limit on all-star games," Carney said.

Tuck is the seventh defensive end in team history to be selected.

"(Michael Strahan) made it (to) seven (Pro Bowls)," Tuck said, "and I want to be the guy that makes it eight."

Manning and his brother, Peyton, were both selected.

"Peyton has invited me before," Eli Manning said, "but I wanted to go when I made it on my own."

 

Most Jets elected to Pro Bowl are surprisedBY ERIK BOLAND | erik.boland@newsday.com
December 17, 2008
Nick Mangold found out on a Christmas shopping trip.

Leon Washington received word in person from his coach, who emoted to the point of giving the running back a big hug.

The Jets, after having zero selections last season, had an NFL-high and franchise-record seven players named to the AFC's Pro Bowl roster yesterday. The previous team record was five players, achieved in 1982, 1985 and 1998.

Brett Favre, making his 10th appearance, leads the group. The others were left guard Alan Faneca, making his eighth straight appearance, nose tackle Kris Jenkins, making his fourth appearance overall, cornerback Darrelle Revis (first), and running back Thomas Jones (first). Mangold and Washington are also first-time selections.



"I want to accept this honor on behalf of the special teams," said Washington, who is averaging 26.7 yards per kickoff return and also has brought one back for a touchdown. "All year long, guys were talking about how they wanted to get me to Hawaii, so hats off to those guys. We did it."

Washington had just finished a workout at the team's practice facility in Florham Park, N.J., when Mangini called him into his office.

"He gave me a hug and he doesn't hug a lot of people," Washington said with a laugh during a conference call with reporters. "Me and Eric have really become close over the years."

Mangold got the call from Mangini while driving between stores.

"I almost swerved off the road," said Mangold, who like Washington, is part of the Jets' 2006 draft class. "Awfully exciting. I don't know if there's a good set of words to put with it. It was a big surprise when I got the call."

Revis, in his second season, sounded less surprised, though still humbled.

"I was excited about it," Revis said. "[Mangini] and I talked about how hard I've worked to become one of the elite corners in the NFL."

The Pro Bowl players are chosen in a ballot by coaches, players and fans, with each group counting one-third of the vote.

JETS' PRO BOWLERS

QB BRETT FAVRE

RB THOMAS JONES*

KR LEON WASHINGTON

C NICK MANGOLD

G ALAN FANECA*

DT KRIS JENKINS*

CB DARRELLE REVIS

*-STARTER

 

The question is: Can Jets win on West Coast?Erik Boland
December 17, 2008
1 2 next According to Robert Louis Stevenson, "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."

Pretty much sums up the Jets West Coast trips in 2008 - zip-for-3 so far, with their latest West Coast Crash being a 24-14 loss Dec. 7 in San Francisco.

Other trips beginning with hope and ending in disappointment were a 48-29 Monday Night Football thumping Sept. 22 and a head-scratching 16-13 overtime loss to the malodorous Raiders on Oct. 19.

There's a theme of the week with every NFL team and it didn't take long for this week's to be mentioned.




"Oh, I'm sure there's going to be plenty," right tackle Damien Woody said Monday, when asked how many West Coast questions he expects this week as the Jets prepare to play in Seattle.

He wasn't being critical.

"There's going to be a lot and deservedly so," Woody said. "We haven't performed nearly as well on the West Coast as we have especially at home or other places that we've played besides the West Coast."

The week of the 49ers game, coach Eric Mangini grew exasperated with the travel questions and finally snapped. What amounts to Mangini snapping, anyway.

"We're not heading on a safari or anything," Mangini said Dec. 4. "It's the West Coast. It's three hours. I don't see the big deal."

Maybe the Jets should treat it as a safari, complete with deplaning in Seattle wearing those wide brim Tilley T5 hats.

Something. Anything to change things up.

In an attempt to reinvent the travel wheel before the season, the Jets - after researching the subject - decided to leave two days before their West Coast games, instead of one (the league mandates teams arrive at least the day before a game).

Players were polled and almost unanimously voted "yes" to the early departure.

Veteran left guard Alan Faneca, who joined the Jets this offseason, wasn't among the yes men.

"I think I was the one guy who voted, of veterans, not to go out two days ahead," Faneca said Dec. 4. "That was mostly just because we have so many, four of them. I've done it both ways. I've flown out at 4 p.m. a day before a game and played at 1 p.m. West Coast time, which I thought was insane. We wound up killing , so it's just a matter of how each team handles it."

The Jets haven't handled much on these trips, coming up emptier in California than the majority of prospectors at Sutter's Mill.

Although this Sunday doesn't take the Jets to California, Mangini did his due diligence after the 49ers loss, looking into changing this weekend's chartered flight and leaving Saturday instead of Friday. Access denied, the airlines said, according to Mangini.

"We definitely looked into it," Mangini said Monday.

But Mangini, while not bristling, didn't want that to become the story, either.

"What I don't want to get too caught up in is that being some reason why we can't perform," he said. "We just saw an East Coast team win back?*to?*back West Coast games. I'm sure they took the same flight."
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