The eyes are wider and more in focus. Hearts are pumping at a slightly more rapid pace.
Already the palpable tension is rising in the Jets’ locker room in anticipation of their AFC divisional playoff showdown with the Jaguars Sunday at Giants Stadium.
“We’re going to be more and more nervous as the week goes on,” Jets’ CB Otis Smith predicted yesterday.
“When I actually think of the game, I get butterflies,” Jets’ TE Kyle Brady added.
“The excitement of the playoffs makes your adrenaline pump a little harder,” Curtis Martin said. “You realize that you’re in a do-or-die situation, that it’s either win or you go home. A lot of times that plays a big role. It causes the game to speed up, it seems, to five times faster than what it was during the regular season.”
Brady, who’s one of the 34 players on the Jets’ roster never to experience a playoff game, said as he put his gear on for practice, “To say the least there’s some excitement around here. This isn’t something a lot of people around here have experienced. I was just talking to a friend the other day saying that this is the first time I’ve ever been here after New Year’s.
“It feels good,” he continued. “It’s an accomplishment to be here right now, but at the same time there’s no satisfaction from anyone around here for just getting here. We’re riding a little bit of a wave right now the last couple of games and we just want to keep it going.”
Keeping the magical ride alive, according to Bill Parcells, is about one thing: the mental and physical capacity to avoid “making the mistake that sends you home.”
“I talk to the players about it all the time,” Parcells said. “I ask them, ‘Do you want to be the guy that makes the mistake that sends the team home?’ I talked to the whole team about it [yesterday]. You make the wrong judgment at the wrong time, you go home.”
There were several NFL teams served as props for Parcells’ lesson thanks to their shoddy wild-card playoff performances this past weekend.
*Buffalo turned the ball over five times in its loss to the Dolphins. The Bills, too, lost Andre Reed, one of their best receivers, when he bumped an official during an argument and was ejected in the closing moments of a tight game.
*The Patriots, who were actually in the game against Jacksonville despite an anemic offense, turned the ball over three times and eventually gave the game away.
*Green Bay, with the 49ers 25 yards away and down to their last play of the game, inexplicably had a couple safeties in the end zone as Terrell Owens caught the game-winning TD. “A very serious mistake in judgment,” Parcells said.
“The [playoffs] are just at a higher intensity,” Parcells said. “You saw a couple teams this weekend where they didn’t know there was a playoff game going on.”
Parcells was obviously talking about New England and Buffalo, who combined to turn the ball over eight times – and not because of difficult weather conditions.
The wild-card mistakes jumped out of the TV screens at the Jets players who were watching.
“You sit at home on your couch and say, ‘The old man was right,'” LG Todd Burger said of Parcells. “The saying I hear the most from him is, ‘Dumb players make dumb mistakes. Smart players seldom make dumb mistakes.’ That kind of sticks with you when you watch these games. It’s not a myth.”
Linebacker Chad Cascadden squirmed in his seat as he watched the Miami-Buffalo game.
“When I saw Andre Reed get up and bump that ref I knew [it was exactly what Parcells talked about],” Cascadden said. “I said, ‘Aw, man, what are you doing?’ He’s a veteran guy. He’s been to Super Bowls. For a guy like that to do something that dumb, I couldn’t believe it. You can’t bump a ref.”
Jets’ punt and kick coverage specialist Ray Lucas, too, thought his eyes were betraying him as he watched the wild-card games.
“Buffalo says, ‘Well, we got jerked by the officials,'” Lucas said. “Well, you turned the ball over five times. It was a badly officiated game, but you can’t turn the ball over five times. Green Bay. Same thing. Jerry [Rice] fumbles, but the safeties are three yards into the end zone. All they’ve got to do is tackle [Terrell Owens] before he gets to the goal line. And, Green Bay turned the ball over three times.”
So the Jets’ formula as they enter Sunday’s playoff game with the Jaguars is simple: Protect the football and don’t commit stupid penalties.
“[Parcells] preaches time of possession, protecting the ball and no stupid penalties,” Burger said.
The Jets finished with the third-least amount of penalties in the NFL with 85. They finished third in the AFC in fewest giveaways with 24. They were third in the NFL in time of possession average at 32:17.
“When you get to the playoffs, the characteristics of the playoff teams are those that play solid defense and teams that don’t beat themselves,” Jets’ LB Bryan Cox said. “The characteristics that you saw in this past weekend’s games – and even in [Monday] night’s [college] national championship game – were teams beating themselves by turning the ball over and committing dumb penalties. They basically helped send their teams home by doing those things.”
The Jets’ attitude is that they’ve come too far to throw it away.
“You do something now and it ends it,” Brady said.
“You realize that all the work that you’ve done in the camps, all season, it can all be gone in one game, one play,” Martin said. “You want to be at your best.”