NFL

Jets starters set for final dress rehearsal

The Jets and Giants finally will take the MetLife Stadium field tonight after Hurricane Irene delayed the preseason meeting between the city rivals.

The delay of the game condenses the schedule for the Jets in preparing for their Sept. 11 opener with the Cowboys. If they had played Saturday, they would have practiced today and tomorrow and had a light practice Wednesday before Thursday’s preseason finale with the Eagles.

The Jets have not announced their practice plan for this week, but playing tonight and Thursday will prevent them from having any full practices this week. They likely will have light walkthroughs tomorrow and Wednesday.

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That means tonight is even more important for the Jets in evaluating where they stand with the season opener in less than two weeks. The starters are unlikely to play Thursday. The team has to cut its roster to 80 tomorrow and to 53 by Saturday, but the Jets have bigger issues to sort out than who the last men on their bench will be.

Here are five areas they will be looking at tonight’s final dress rehearsal for the starters:

HITTING THE GROUND

Coach Rex Ryan loves to run the ball in his Ground and Pound system. Even with Santonio Holmes, Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason at wide receiver, the Jets plan on being a run-first team. But so far in the preseason the running attack has looked shaky. The starting offense ran for just 16 yards a week ago against the Bengals.

The run game should get a boost with the return of right guard Brandon Moore and tailback Shonn Greene, who both missed last week’s game. The Jets are counting on Greene to improve this year. A strong performance tonight would be a step toward proving he’s ready to do just that.

RED DOES NOT MEAN STOP

Last year the Jets were 28th in the league in red zone scoring percentage. They’ve talked this year about the red zone being a point of emphasis, even bringing in former Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore to speak about the topic to the coaching staff during the lockout.

Last week, the starting offense went 1-for-2 in the red zone, scoring after one interception but stalling after another.

KICK IT AROUND

The Jets had virtually no position battles in training camp. The only exceptions came on special teams where both the starting kicker and punter spot have been tight contests.

Nick Folk and Nick Novak have been pretty even in the battle for the kicker’s job. Folk is the incumbent so he is viewed as the favorite. But he missed a 43-yard field goal last week and also kicked a kickoff out of bounds.

At punter, Chris Bryan and T.J. Conley have both been unimpressive, leading to speculation the Jets might look to add another punter before the season.

FILLING OUT THE DEPTH CHART

While the Jets’ offense still has several questions to answer, the defense looks ready to go. The only area still to address is depth. The Jets want to carry a lot of defensive linemen this year, they now have to figure out which ones. They also need to figure out how exactly Kyle Wilson, Donald Strickland, Josh Mauga and Aaron Maybin fit into their plans.

ON OR OFF THE MARK

Mark Sanchez gets one shot with all of his weapons after various players missed the first two preseason games. It will be interesting to see how his timing is with a group that has only been working together for four weeks. Last week, he looked off early but then clicked with Dustin Keller, Holmes and Burress later.

brian.costello@nypost.com