Shonn Greene isn’t much for looking back. Kids: What do they know?
“These guys are probably going to talk to you about last year,” the Jets PR man whispered as he walked across the locker room with Greene yesterday afternoon.
“Last year?” asked Greene, the Jets’ second-year running back. “Who cares about last year?”
Kids: What do they know? Greene is 25 years old. He has been a Jet for two seasons. It’s not possible for him to understand the level of angst that accompanied his departure from last season’s AFC Championship game; the level of “what if?” that infiltrated the tortured denizens of Jetsville; the numbing sense of inevitability that something was bound to go wrong, even in the middle of a January that had gone so right.
“Last year,” he said a bit later, after the eighth or ninth time he had heard those words from the scrum in front of his locker, “is out of my mind.”
That would make him a distinct member of the minority of all the interested parties surrounding the Jets. Maybe you’ve forgotten: The Jets took a 17-13 lead into the second half at Lucas Oil Stadium last Jan. 24. They controlled the first half against the Colts, parlaying the momentum and good feeling accrued in Cincinnati and San Diego.
Greene? He had emerged as the engine propelling the Jets’ playoff push, gaining 135 yards against the Bengals, 128 yards against the Chargers, reaching the end zone in each game.
Against the Colts, the Jets had opted to use the big play in the first half, but with a lead in the third quarter, they were going to turn to their young workhorse.
On the first play of second half, starting at the Jets’ 27, Mark Sanchez handed the ball to Greene, and Greene slashed for 7 hard yards, an excellent start. But as he rose from the ground after getting sandwiched by Indianapolis’ Antoine Bethea and Phillip Wheeler, he felt a twinge in his ribcage. He stayed in the game. Next play, same play: Green, slicing for 7 more yards and a first down, tackled by Kelvin Hayden.
This time, he jogged off the field.
And never returned.
He went to the locker room, breathing painfully, submitted to X-rays, stayed in the locker room, watched the rest of the game on TV, watched Thomas Jones struggle for a yard here, 2 yards there, saw the Colts smelling for blood, and finding it, saw the Jets’ offense grind to a halt. The drive that started so promisingly with back-to-back Greene rushes ended with a missed 52-yard field goal by Jay Feely.
Three and a half minutes later, the Colts had the lead, and wouldn’t be giving it back, and the Jets never progressed deeper than the Indy 47-yard-line the rest of the day.
Regrets?
“I have none,” Greene said. “I’m looking forward, not back.”
Regrets?
“I’m not gonna say that, tell you that lie,” Rex Ryan said, asked if he thought having Greene the whole 60 minutes would have changed the outcome. “They beat us.”
Regrets?
Chances are, you feel differently. You saw the kind of roll Greene was on last January, the kind of momentum he still had when he took those two plunges into the heart of the Colts defense that ended his season. And maybe you kept those memories close this year when it seemed there were long stretches of season when Ryan and Brian Schottenheimer fell out of love with Greene, who got 34 fewer carries than LaDainian Tomlinson this year despite breaking camp as the alleged feature back.
Ryan and Schottenhimer dismissed the notion that they diminished Greene’s load at all, both were positively ebullient that both Greene and Tomlinson will be fresh for the playoffs, having sat out the Buffalo game last week.
Greene? If he felt diminished, he wasn’t sharing.
“I don’t worry about the other stuff,” he said. “I just go out and play, and I’ll be ready to do anything I’m asked. We just need to do the same things we did last year and we’ll be in a good place.”
Kids: They know enough.
Give him the ball, Rex. Call his number, Brian. A lot. He’s ready. And you need him.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com