THE Jets promise they are ready to back up all their tough talk, from Rex Ryan on down. A tough town deserves a tough team, and here come the Jets. Here is nose tackle Kris Jenkins, the 360-pound enforcer, describing what Jet fans will see Sunday against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and the hated Patriots.
“They will see a team with the New York mentality, we’ll just say that,” Jenkins said. “I’ve been around in the subways, I’ve been in some clubs, I’ve been in some places in New York — we’re just gonna say they’re gonna see a team with the New York-type of mentality.”
Jenkins, who grew up outside Detroit, described a New York mentality.
“It’s like a very cocky … everything’s on the line with New York. … That’s one of the things that you kinda realize when you go into the city and things like that … everything’s on the line. Everybody as far as just who they are, everything … just real standoffish, just really in your face. … I don’t think that you can be meek and be in this city. I think that if you’re gonna be in this city, at some point, somewhere, you’re gonna have to stand up for yourself.”
It sounds like 60 Minutes of Hell.
“Yeah, yeah … I think that’s a nice way to put it,” Jenkins said, and laughed.
You’re making it sound like you guys are bringing brass knuckles to the game.
“We understand that talking trash comes at a price,” Jenkins said. “We understand that opening our mouths and saying what we’re saying comes at a price. ”
Show ‘em The Bronx!
Would you say this is a hungry team?
“Oh yeah … oh yeah … oh yeah,” Jenkins said. How hungry?
“We’re trying to get something that we haven’t had I guess as an organization since … Namath?” Jenkins said.
Now it is Damien Woody’s turn to describe the team raucous Jet fans will see Sunday.
“Physical … just attacking … something that they probably haven’t seen in a LONG time,” Woody said. “Even if we make a mistake, we’re still gonna come back and attack. I think that’s one thing that Jet fans are not used to seeing around here. You’re used to seeing, you know, if you make a mistake, then we get kinda conservative, or we back down. That’s not happening. That’s not the type of team Rex wants. He wants us to attack all the time.”
So this is a Go For The Throat mentality.
“Yeah … we’re all about going for the jugular. … That’s us … offense, defense, special teams,” Woody said. “That’s what he preaches, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
The most important throat to go for is Brady’s.
In their meeting room yesterday morning, the Jets defensive backs watched the tape of the Giants’ Super Bowl XLII victory over the Pats, when Big Blue hounded, harassed and hit Brady all day.
“Damn,” Ahmad Carroll said, “look at the Giants’ front four get off the ball!”
And that was before Brady missed virtually all of 2008 with a blown-out knee.
“The pressure got to him, there were some throws in there he made that he would never make; he was throwing the ball away in the dirt,” Kerry Rhodes said.
Can you guys do that?
“Yeah we think we can,” Rhodes said.
They think Ryan can disrupt Brady better than Belichick (no Tedy Bruschi, no Richard Seymour, no Jerod Mayo, no Rodney Harrison, no Mike Vrabel) can disrupt Mark Sanchez.
They think they can show Tom Brady The Bronx.
“We want to make it as uncomfortable for him as we can,” Shaun Ellis said. “Me personally, I think that we can get to him.”
Brady looked skittish early against the Bills before staging his fourth-quarter heroics. The Bills never showed him The Bronx.
“I never thought he flinched one bit,” Ryan said.
Show him The Bronx.
steve.serby@nypost.com