CORTLAND — He has been chasing a Super Bowl ring for nine years going on 10, on a franchise that has been chasing one for 45 years going on 46, and there isn’t any other place Nick Mangold wants to chase it and win it than with the New York Jets.
He was 60 minutes from the Super Bowl in 2009 and 2010, when Mark Sanchez was the Sanchise, and he hasn’t been back to the playoffs since. He is driven to hold that Lombardi Trophy as high as the Empire State Building over his blond-sheared head.
“It still drives me,” Mangold said. “I see guys who get a ring, and that’s my motivation, is to get that ring. Guys that I’ve played with, guys that I currently play with like Breno [Giacomini], he got his ring. To be that close, and not even get the chance for it, it was tough.”
When Mangold looks around him, he sees an entire team driven and committed. He sees a developing, more self-assured Geno Smith. He sees a ravenous front seven. He sees talent willing to bring their lunch pails and pay the price.
“I think this is a team that’s hungry,” Mangold said.
“This offseason, I thought we had one of our best offseasons coming in from taking the momentum from the end of the season last year, bringing new guys in, and just bringing ’em into the fold of ‘Hey, we’re on the rise, we gotta keep that going.’ ”
He is 30 now, signed through 2017, and yearns to be a Jet For Life the way Chris Snee was a Giant For Life.
“I’d kill for that,” Mangold said. “I wouldn’t kill for it, but it would be one of the greatest accomplishments that I could do, to be able to finish out, hopefully with a ring or two, and be able to say I’m a New York Jet, from Day 1 to the end.”
Mangold entered the NFL in 2006, two years after Snee.
“It’s just amazing because when you see these guys that have been here in New York longer than I have, and been around for a long while, to see the way that they exit football and to see those things, I thought it was pretty amazing what [Snee] was able to accomplish,” Mangold said. “To come to the realization that his body couldn’t take it any more had to be tough. I can only imagine what having to deal with that mentally, and the way that he tried to fight, tried to come back, and then said, ‘You know what? For the team, I can’t go, and I’m not gonna play to my standards, so for the team, it’s better that I step away from the game.’ I think that takes a lot of courage. It was pretty impressive.”
For Mangold, it was an eye-opener, a reminder of his own mortality and longevity.
“I think as you get older — I never thought I’d make it to nine years — every year you get an opportunity to do it, you take that opportunity,” Mangold said. “So, for him to say, ‘I’ve got an opportunity but I can’t do it,’ had to be tough.”
So when Mangold is asked how much longer he thinks he wants to do this, he says with a chuckle: “Until they kick me out. I’ll keep playing until they tell me I’m not allowed to anymore.”
When asked why he would want to subject his body to the pounding and jeopardize his future well-being for his 3 ¹/₂ -year-old son Matthew and arriving new daughter, Mangold began talking about his team.
“I love playing for this organization,” he said, “I love playing for the guys. As we get new guys in, and old guys leave … Willie Colon and I, we didn’t play together for eight years, but then he comes in, fit right in, and we’re like best brothers now. That camaraderie, that team spirit, is in every locker room, but for me, because it’s the New York Jets locker room, it’s a little extra special.”
His Super Bowl quest will be interrupted at any moment because his wife Jenny is due with Eloise Elizabeth.
“I got a special phone that I always keep on me, and as soon as she goes into labor she’s gonna call me and I’m gonna head down and hopefully be there in time,” Mangold said.
Mangold supported Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy during his paternity leave controversy.
“I thought it was crazy that he was getting a lot of guff,” Mangold said. “Family’s gonna be there forever, so I would like to be there.”
He will be there without his familiar raging, long blond locks.
“I attempted to donate last year, I didn’t have enough hair to still have it kind of long, so made a plan to do it again this year, and we got to about May, and I was like champing at the bit, and it was like, ‘I’m just gonna cut it, I can’t take it anymore,’ because it got too long,” Mangold said. “But my wife kind of pushed me a little bit more, so we waited till about mid-June, and a lady came in and chopped it off and donated to wigs for cancer patients and stuff.”
Teammates have razzed him, of course.
“Yeah, Willie Colon hates me at the moment, unfortunately,” Mangold said, “but he’ll come back around.”
Why does he hate you?
“Because he says I don’t look like me,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m still me,’ you know?’ ”
Still a Jet. Who wants to be a forever Jet.
“I was with John Schmitt a week ago or so — Joe Namath’s center — and to see him and to see what kind of pride that he has in the Jets and the way that he carries himself,” Mangold says, “I want to be that guy in 40 years, 50 years.”