Doug Brien quietly seethed last year as the perception of his ability by New Yorkers became eminently clear.
Brien, the Jets’ kicker in his second season here, was like an all-around receiver who was irritated at being labeled a “possession” receiver, capable of only the short and intermediate route but incapable of getting deep for the big play.
“No one really said it to me last year, but you kind of got the feeling of, ‘Oh, he’s an inside-the-50 guy,’ and that really annoyed me,” Brien said. “If you look at the numbers in my career, that’s not who I’ve been.”
Indeed, prior to going 0-4 from 50 yards and longer last season with the Jets, Brien was a respectable 14-of-22 from long distance (64 percent) in his career. His previous two attempts before joining the Jets were blocked while he was with the Saints, making him 0-for-his-last-6 from 50 and out before last week.
In Sunday’s tight 17-6 win over the Dolphins in Miami, Brien went a long way toward changing his image as a 40-to-49 kind of kicker when he pounded a 53-yarder to the back of the netting beyond the goal posts to give the Jets key points before the end of the first half.
“It kind of opened a new dimension for me here,” Brien said of that FG.
“What that kick did for him, it put him in a different light to the players – not to me, but to the players,” Herman Edwards said. “He did it in a game where all points were critical. His history says he hasn’t kicked a bunch of them over 50. So you sit there and you go, ‘That’s his history.’ Why is that? Well, you’ve got to look at the circumstances.
“You wonder until they do it. Chad Pennington story. He’s the quarterback, OK, that’s great. Go win a game. All right, he won one. He won two. He won three. Won the division. Pretty good. You’ve got to do it. When you do it, people go, “Hey, he did it.”
Brien said he feels like long-distance FGs are “a dimension where I can help the team.”
“Now, I feel like that door, that window of opportunity is back open again,” Brien said, referring to proving himself with that 53-yarder Sunday.
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Jet CB Derrick Strait (sprained foot) is listed as questionable and unlikely to play tomorrow against Buffalo. He’ll be replaced at the nickel back by veteran Terrell Buckley.
C Kevin Mawae will decide for sure on game day whether he’ll snap righty or lefty. LG Pete Kendall will play despite a sprained right wrist, which won’t enable him to snap if called upon.
Tough couple of weeks for LT Jason Fabini, who’s been ill this week but is expected to play.