The Post’s Steve Serby chats with Jets linebacker Calvin Pace, who will make his season debut tomorrow night after serving a four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Q: Braylon Edwards?
A: I think it was a great addition. That’s like the beauty of being here — that they’ll do whatever it takes to try to put a winner on the field.
Q: Is this a Super Bowl team?
A: To be honest with you, I will say so. I think we got one of the best offensive lines in football. We got three good backs, a rookie quarterback who in my opinion ain’t playing like a rookie. . . . He’ll make a mistake and come right back the next series and make something good happen. . . . With the addition of Braylon, and Jerricho (Cotchery), and (David) Clowney’s development . . . if the defense could just apply a little bit more pressure and create turnovers, we can really ride this thing to the Super Bowl.
Q: Compare Rex Ryan with Eric Mangini.
A: When you come in Mangini’s meetings, it was all about note-taking, you know, questions and . . . it was like going to a class and having a test every day, which was cool, and he taught a lot about football just in terms of stuff like, “How wide is the field? Where’s the hash at on the field?”
Rex is a little bit more laid-back, free-spirited so to say, just in terms of, “Fellas, at any cost or whatever, just make plays.” He understands sometimes things ain’t gonna be perfect, but if you can make a play, make it. At this stage where we are with this team, I think Rex brings what we need, just that intensity.
Sometimes you gotta say, “You know what? Just go out there and beat ’em. No matter how you do it, just go beat ’em.”
Q: Bill Parcells tried getting you to Miami before you signed with the Jets.
A: Bill Parcells is a guy that you have to listen to. Just because of what he’s done, especially on the defensive side of the ball, from Lawrence Taylor to DeMarcus Ware, Greg Ellis. . . . And when he started saying that, he almost got me, I’m not gonna lie, he almost got me.
Q: Did you find him to be a charismatic guy?
A: Yeah, a good guy, good guy. He’s one of those people, when he speaks, listen.
Q: Did he bring up Lawrence Taylor’s name?
A: Yeah he brought him up (chuckle).
Q: What did he say about him?
A: Basically like he helped him (get) where he got. I mean, he didn’t take all the credit. He couldn’t take credit for the speed and the intensity he brought to the game, but obviously he helped shape his game.
Q: Your immediate emotion when you learned you would be suspended for four games (for testing positive for an over-the-counter supplement)?
A: When you’re at home, you might go work out, and you got a whole day to yourself, and for a guy who’s been playing football since 9, it’s like, “I don’t know what to do.” It just made me more hungry. It makes me appreciate just day to day, just being in the building.
Q: Beating Tom Brady this season?
A: More than anything, they made Brady uncomfortable in the pocket.
Q: Did it remind you of the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl?
A: It did. That’s the blueprint to give yourself a chance to beat them. ’Cause when you sit back there and let him throw seven-on-seven man, you don’t have a chance.
Q: Your 50-yard touchdown last season against the Rams?
A: I couldn’t wait for the goal line to get there quicker. I thought I was gonna die, man. I felt like that ball weighed 50 pounds, and I just could not pick my legs up.
Q: You were labeled a bust in Arizona.
A: To me I think that’s the worst thing that could say about a player. Sometimes people just are in the wrong place. I played my part, too — when I first got in the NFL, I wasn’t working hard enough, I wouldn’t study enough film. . . . It takes time, really, to develop in this league.
Q: Players you like to watch.
A: Jared Allen . . . DeMarcus Ware . . . Jason Taylor fan . . . Kyle Vanden Bosch; Aaron Schobel.
Q: You grew up watching football with your mother (Nancy).
A: When Michael Vick was playing for Atlanta, she was one of his top fans. My second year (with the Cardinals) we played the Falcons, and I sacked Michael Vick, and she was like, “Maybe I’m happy you got the sack but . . . you didn’t have to hit Michael Vick like that!” I’m like, “You’re supposed to be cheering for me!” (smile).
Q: Her reaction when Vick was involved with the dogfighting?
A: She was hurt by it.
Q: You tied Michael McCrary as the all-time Wake Forest sack king.
A: Put this on record — technically I broke it, but they took four sacks away from me my senior year.
Q: You missed one game . . . with a broken leg . . . and returned for the Seattle Bowl game against Oregon.
A: We were playing Navy my senior year, and Navy ran a triple option, so they do a lot of cut blocking. So I was playing defensive end, there was a guy that was standing outside of me, he got cut, and when he got cut, he got cut into my left leg, and he broke my fibula. But at the time, I just thought like, ‘Man, I think I just bruised my shin,’ so I took probably two plays off and finished the game. I had to run with kinda like a slight limp.
Q: Favorite Christmas?
A: One year I got a skateboard, I got one good day out of riding out of it and I fell off of it so much, I wound up wasting the money, basically.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Jesus Christ; my grandmother (Lillian) who passed away when I was a sophomore in high school; Bo Jackson.
Q: You love to cook?
A: I used to make good beef short ribs, but I cut out red meat . . . make a good tandoori chicken, tandoori lamb. . . . If you can give me a recipe, and it doesn’t have too many crazy ingredients where I gotta go searching the earth for, I can put it together now.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: Superbad.
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Denzel Washington.
Q: Favorite actress?
A: Halle Berry.
Q: Favorite entertainer?
A: Little Wayne.
Q: Favorite book?
A: The Master Key System or The Mind Gym.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Sushi.
Q: What drives you?
A: From where I come from, a school (Wake Forest) that’s not traditionally known as a powerhouse . . . to go to Arizona and be looked at as a bust . . . come here and people are still like, “Why did you give that guy all that
money?” It drives me to go out there and be great where somebody will eventually say, “You know what? That guy can play.”