Think the Jets, fresh off of their 24-7 rout of the Texans, are amped up about making their next bold statement — Sunday at 1 p.m. against the Patriots in their home opener at Giants Stadium?
“We’re going to be playing this game like it’s the Super Bowl,” nose tackle Kris Jenkins said yesterday.
Jets players, following their team meeting yesterday afternoon, were about 24 hours removed from their win in Houston. The Patriots, meanwhile, were getting ready for their Monday night season opener against the Bills, which the Pats won 25-24. Yet the Jets’ focus was already like a laser in anticipation of that showdown against their AFC East rivals, the team that’s owned them for more than seven years, winning 11 of the last 13 meetings.
Rex Ryan, some four months removed from the now-infamous words he spoke about not having come to the Jets to “kiss Bill Belichick’s rings,” hardly backed off yesterday when speaking about the Jets’ most vicious rivals.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Ryan said. “They’re better than us in two spots that I know for sure and that’s head coach and quarterback. But we’ll find out who has the better team right now. We’ll see.”
Ryan, of course, was deferring to Belichick and Tom Brady, but he wasn’t backing down.
“It’s not about me against Belichick; that would be one-sided,” Ryan said. “But I think I’ll compete. I know I’ll compete. He’s going to get everything I’ve got. I think New England will get everything Sanchez has, too.
“When you’re putting a little check (in the box for team matchups) you put the check by quarterback and you put the check by coach (for the Patriots). That’s fine.”
Asked where the checks would go for the rest of the teams, Ryan said, “We’re going to find out.”
Wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery said he doesn’t expect Ryan’s bravado to add any more competitive fire to the game than it will already have.
“I don’t think (the Patriots) will like us any (less) than they do now,” Cotchery said. “They don’t like us at all. We’re not too much worried about that at all.
“Of course (they don’t like us), they’re in our division. We’re trying to win this division and anyone that’s in the way of us trying to win is considered to be the enemy.”
A player with perhaps the most interesting perspective on the Jets-Patriots rivalry is linebacker Larry Izzo, who played with New England the last eight seasons before signing with the Jets this past offseason.
“Someone asked me if (what Ryan said about Belichick) bothered me having been a part of those teams and if I felt disrespected,” Izzo said. “Not at all. When you understand where Rex was coming from you understand he was clearly speaking about what his focus is on — his focus is on his team.
“A lot of times people want to talk about other teams — maybe New England — repetitively. (Ryan) made a statement saying, ‘I’m not here worrying about those guys. This is my team and this is how we’re going to play and everyone else better watch out.’ That’s how I took it.”