It’s east to forget sometimes just how explosive the Jets’ offensive arsenal can be. Part of that is the nature of how they view themselves: as a defense-first team. Part of that is the way they look at the world when they have the football in their hands. Ground and Pound: Not a lot of subtlety in that philosophy.
And part of that is because the Jets don’t exactly overwork and overuse the weapons in question, specifically Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards, bookend receivers who, if only in starts and stops, have shown how dangerous — if not devastating — they can be.
When the Jets use them, anyway.
Edwards caught 53 balls this year. Holmes caught 54. The leading receiver in the NFL this year, Atlanta’s Roddy White, caught more passes (115) than the two of them put together. The leading pass-catcher in the AFC, the Colts’ Reggie Wayne, caught twice as many (111) as either one of them. Edwards ranked 54th overall in the NFL; Holmes tied for 56th with, among others, LaDainian Tomlinson.
The numbers aren’t eye-popping.
But the performances can be. And have been. And when you throw Jerricho Cotchery into the mix, you understand a couple of things. First, the Jets’ occasional inability to score points this year is mystifying, if not infuriating, given this troika of talented receivers. And second, Bill Belichick isn’t playing possum when he talks about what the Jets are capable of.
“If you’re not careful,” Belichick said this week, “they can explode on you.”
As reliable as Cotchery is, it’s Edwards and Holmes — one a formerly enigmatic talent, the other a former Super Bowl hero; one a Michigan man, one an Ohio State guy — who provide the Jets, and Mark Sanchez, with the opportunity to keep up with the Patriots and their pinball-machine offense if that’s what’s necessary two days from now.
That didn’t exactly happen in Foxborough on Dec. 6 — one of a million reasons the Jets limped off the field 45-3 losers that day — but we’ve seen it happen enough this year to realize what the Jets are capable of.
Holmes, of course, is the man with the deeper resume, one of only a handful of men in history who can say they directly won a Super Bowl, thanks to his forever catch of a Ben Roethlisberger corner-of-the-end-zone toss two years back. Edwards has also been known throughout his career as a player who can make spectacular plays — and just as routinely drop the easiest pass imaginable. That he’s cut down on those drops this year tells you not only about Edwards’ development as a player, but also how helpful it can be having someone pushing you every day.
“We bring out the best in each other,” Holmes said.
“He’s quicker and faster off the line, and I’ve learned a lot watching him, studying his technique,” Edwards said. “And I’m bigger and stronger, and I think that’s something he’s tried to pick up on, too.”
It’s something everyone on the Jets has picked up on, notably Sanchez.
“The great thing about throwing to those guys isn’t just that they’re talented, and that they want to make big plays,” Sanchez said. “It’s that they want to win, and they want me to become as good a quarterback as I can be. It’s been great for me having them both on the field.”
And Rex Ryan, the coach with the old-school football soul and older-school sense of sensibilities? He understands as well as anyone. He knows how hard it should be to defend an offense with two diverse, complementary receivers coming at you at once.
“The thing is, they’re as happy for the other guy catching the ball as they are for themselves,” Ryan said. “They pull for each other. It’s a neat thing. They all look at it as a unit, and they think they’re a special group, and I do too.”
On Sunday, “special” could well become something else. One way or another.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com