Sports

JETS ARE COUNTING ON D-ECISIVE EDGE

With Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Al Groh and Romeo Crennel, the postseason always has been about defense.

World Series championships are won with pitching. NFL playoff games and Super Bowls are won with defense.

Defensive challenges like the one the Jets face in Sunday’s divisional playoff against the Jaguars at Giants Stadium come only in the postseason. They’re what defensive players crave, what coaches thrive on stopping. This is what Belichick and his staff live for, why they’re in business.

If the Jets are to reach the AFC title game, they’ll have to contain the Jaguars’ potentially explosive offense, which is capable of stamping a big number on the scoreboard in a number of ways.

The Jags, led by their two big guns, quarterback Mark Brunell and running back Fred Taylor, were ranked 10th overall in offense and fifth in rushing offense. In their wild-card playoff victory over New England, Taylor cut up the Patriots for 162 rushing yards.

The Jets’ defense hasn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher since New England’s Robert Edwards rushed for 104 on them in Game 6. That was 10 games ago. Before that, the only other 100-yard runner was San Francisco’s Garrison Hearst, who ran for 187, including that 96-yard game-winner in overtime.

Brunell, who was the fourth-ranked passer in the AFC with 20 TDs, nine INTs and an 89.9 rating, is one of those elusive weebles that wobble but doesn’t fall down. He’s as much a threat to scramble for a back-breaking big play as Steve Young, Doug Flutie and Steve McNair, the previous three slippery characters the Jets have tried to defense already this season.

The Jets’ defense, which has allowed an average of 12 points per game in the last three outings, believes it’s up to the task, particularly after what will be seven full practices by the time the game arrives.

“You have to turn it up,” Pepper Johnson was saying yesterday. “You have to rev your engine up for this time of year. This isn’t like an average game. This is why you worked so hard in the offseason, why you did all the running, the two-a-days. A game like this is the reason you play.”

As for Taylor, Johnson said, “We’ve found ways to shut people down before. We heard the same flak with backs like [Atlanta’s] Jamal Anderson and he chucked it in and started to fold it down when we got to him.”

Anderson, who led the NFC and was second in the NFL in rushing with 1,846 yards, was held to 46 yards on 19 carries in the Falcons’ loss to the Jets, one of their two for the season.

“[Taylor] runs very hard,” Johnson said. “He takes advantage of any little cracks or creases and finds a hole. And then, when he gets to the defensive backs and smaller linebackers he lowers his shoulders.”

Taylor, who rushed for 1,223 yards and a robust 4.6-yard average, scored 17 TDs this season, 14 rushing. He owns also owns the three longest runs in team history at 77, 70 and 52 yards.

“A guy like that, you’ve got to try to hit him early,” Jets’ SS Victor Green said. “You hit him early, let him know he’s in for a long day. Even though he makes a play here or there, let him know he’s going to be in for a fight the whole game.

“When you go in and the first five or six plays he dashes 10 yards here, 20 yards there, he might think, ‘I can get 200 yards today.’ If momentum ever gets in his favor that’s the way he’ll run. This guy’s got his confidence. He had a big week last week, had a big season. So if he can come in this week and have that same kind of success, he’s going to feel he can do that all day. I’m going to have my shots on him, and when I do, I have got to try to make them count.

“Linebackers, D-linemen, whoever may be in there in that capacity, they have to go out there and get a good hit on him and let him know that it’s going to be a dogfight, a long day.”

Jets’ LB Bryan Cox refused to look at Taylor as inexperienced despite his rookie status.

“This guy is not a rookie,” Cox said. “He’s rushed for 1,000 yards. I don’t consider him a rookie. He’s taken the hits. People have come after him. He’s not a rookie anymore.

“If it wasn’t for Randy Moss, [Taylor] probably would be Rookie of the Year. He’s big, runs with power, has speed to get to the outside, does a good job of cutting back and bouncing out. He’ll carry the ball anywhere. He’s a key for them.”

Brunell called Taylor “the difference for us on offense.”

“Fred is a guy that, on any given play, can break one and put points on the board,” Brunell said.

“I honestly think this is going to be the next 2,000-yard back,” Jets’ CB Aaron Glenn said. “I really think that. He’s unbelievable. Right now, I put him and Terrell Davis up there together. The next couple of years, they’ll be the guys going after the record.

“You never know. I’m just saying, that guy is as good as anybody in this league, I think. He has speed, he has power, he has a mixture of things that makes him successful.”