E-Boland & Gang Green

Howdie do, Jets fans (or folks who just can’t get enough of the Boland's blog). Stephen Haynes here to talk to you, with you, and, depending on how the comments go, maybe about you.

I don't know if the media has touched on this, but Brett Favre is now a Jet. He'll likely be starting. As well, former Jet Chad Pennington is now a Dolphin and he's expected to start. [pause so you can catch your breath]

The Jets went 4-12 last season, in large part because of their langurous offense. They expect it to be improved, what with the couple offseason changes they made. The Dolphins went 1-15 and... added Bill Parcells as football czar and subtracted stars Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas. But they're expected to be better because it's hard to duplicate 1-15.

Closer than it should've been, but they pulled it out. Jets fans, you may now wringe the perspiration from your clothes and exhale.

For anyone who cares about stats (especially the fantasy leaguers):
Favre: 15 of 22, 194 yards, 2 touchdowns, 0 interceptions
Jones: 22 carries, 101 yards, 1 touchdown; 3 receptions for 2 yards
Cotchery: 3 catches for 80 yards and a touchdown
Eric Barton led the Jets with 6 tackles; Bryan Thomas had two sacks and Calvin Pace and Shaun Ellis had a sack apiece.

Pennington: 26 for 43, 251 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception
Williams: 10 carries for 24 yards (he fumbled twice; neiter was lost)
Fasano: 8 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown
Martin: 4 catches for 53 yards and a touchdown
Ginn: averaged 4.3 yards on 3 punt returns
Yeremiah Bell: 10 tackles and a forced fumble; one sack each for Matt Roth (and a fumble force), Porter and Kendall.

For the Jets:

QB Erik Ainge, WR Marcus Henry, WR David Clowney, CB Justin Miller, LB Kenwin Cummings, OL Robert Turner, DL Kareem Brown, QB Brett Ratliff (3rd QB).

For the Dolphins:

WR Ernest Wilford, CB Michael Lehan, RB Jalen Parmele, G Shawn Murphy, DE Lionel Dotston, T Nate Garner (the former Jet has fulfilled his obligations for the week, apparently), DE Rodrique Wright, QB John Beck (3rd QB).

That's all for now. Back tonight after doing all the newspaper duties. We will have a Newsday-er live-blogging this afternoon's game so for those inclined for some real-time discussion during the game, that's a good option. Enjoy the afternoon.

Just got to the press box and here's the deal: it's wickedly hot outside. The gametime temperature is predicted to be 90 degrees with a heat index of 100 degrees or so. But no rain and just a little wind.

Big nose tackle Kris Jenkins had a good line about the heat earlier this week.

"I am looking forward to it," the 359-pound Jenkins said of the heat. "I was in Carolina for awhile. I was used to heat. I am cold up here so it’s going to actually help."

Back soon with the inactives.

Well, let’s get first to what I see happening Sunday.

With apologies elsewhere, this is what I see I’ll see:

- I see Chad Pennington, behind a new offensive line, hitting the grass an awful lot, a result of both sacks and pressures. And without a lot of playmakers around him, struggling to do not much more than dump offs and screens. Please hold the punchlines…

- I see Brett Favre having his own struggles having not seen a lot of game action in the preseason, but, most important, staying upright for the most part behind Faneca, Woody, et. all.

- I see a game plan that looks to establish the run and then branches off from there but nothing too fancy.

- I see Dustin Keller breaking open at least once deep in the seam and Brad Smith taking an end around 15+ yards.

- I see the Dolphins, imbued with emotion, behind the running of Ricky Williams, getting off to a good start and taking an early lead.

- Like a few of my colleagues, I see the Jets pulling off some kind of big special teams play. And so, in the end…

- I see an emotional, draining contest in oppressive heat and humidity - though possibly in severe rain, too - with the Jets getting out of Dodge with a 16-10 win in a game they absolutely have to have. But…

- I’ve seen enough of the NFL to know that it’s quite possible almost none of the things I think I’ll see will actually happen and the final could very well be 45-38. But speculation is what we do here.

- As for the rest of the NFL games this weekend, I have to pick them all for the paper. For those who missed them in today’s paper, here they are with all picks against the spread. I guess I’m supposed to give this disclaimer: all picks against the spread are for recreational purposes and should not be used for any actual cash wager. I feel much better now. Additionally, in the interest of full disclosure, I picked the Redskins last night and, as a youngin’ many years ago, recall having a hunch that Mondale might unseat Reagan. Whether before the age of 10 or now, my predictions can be slightly off.

Weekend picks, with the “best bet” in CAPS: Jets, Packers, Steelers, Seahawks, Panthers, Browns, Bengals, Titans, SAINTS, 49ers,Bears, Chiefs, Falcons, Eagles, Broncos.

* Random Act of Randomness I: Bloom’s a little bit off the Steve Spurrier rose, no?

* Randomness II: While assisting with Newsday’s coverage of the Giants game last night I was able to spend a little time chatting with some other papers’ national writers, primarily the great Judy Battista from the Times and the equally talented Charean Williams (Charlene to some of us who are type-I-cally challenged) from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. How does Newsday’s Bob Glauber fit into that group, you might ask? Interestingly, after talking with the other two, I had the same question…

* Randomness III: His Thursday night free, Herm Edwards apparently lent Redskins coach Jim Zorn a hand managing the clock.

* Randomness IV: A potential disruption to my early-morning flight out of LaGuardia tomorrow is the possibility of the remnants of Hurricane Hanna moving through New York. Yet another hurricane is predicted to possibly hit Miami at some point during the weekend. I've had some memorable travel occurrences over the years [see the hotel room floor story from a few posts back] but this trip is shaping up as an all-timer. And with that, talk to you from Miami.

Any time now, Bubba.

Sometimes - actually most of the time - it's what you DON'T see at practice that's significant so maybe after we go in he catches everything. But during a receivers' drill during the 30 minutes we watched practice, Bubba Franks, on a deep out that covered just over 20 yards, dropped the ball. One play earlier, Dustin Keller made what seemed to be his 100th fluid-looking run-and-catch of the preseason. I still think Franks was a good pickup and a good player but, sheesh, he's had a lot of drops.

Here was the order of plays we saw in the red zone during one drill, one that included just the receivers and no defenders:

- Favre out left to Laveranues Coles
- Favre dump over the middle to Leon Washington
- Inside handoff to Thomas Jones
- quick slant to Chansi Stuckey
- quick out to Dustin Keller
- soft toss middle to Jerricho Cotchery
- a fade (YES, that play is still in!) to Stuckey right side.

Semi-humorous Favre comment, addressing a favorite topic of his - playbook size - from yesterday that I didn't put in here:

"Believe me, each and every playbook across the league, you can go to bat with a lot less than what they put in. don't know how many pass plays we have in, but we have a bunch. We won't run half of them. That's just the way it is. I could say that each year I've played. I feel confident with what we have in. It just comes down to execution."

* As frequent readers of this blog know, I tried to give extensive - if not long-winded - practice reports during training camp. That's impossible now, given our 30- minute allotment and not a lot of team drills done in that time. However, with special teams almost always getting worked on in that time frame, at least we get to observe Mike Westhoff, who recently rejoined the team, coaching.

"I want the fliers to give me the EXACT look Miami does!"

"There it is Leon! There it is!"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

The man is enjoyable to watch coach. I asked kicker Mike Nugent about Westhoff earlier today and, while he was very sincere in his praise of Kevin O'Dea, Nugent talked at length about how uber-prepared he is for, well, just about everything.

"It seems like what we use in film or our study and everything we see on paper, when it's put together on the field, it just seems like everything goes together right," Nugent said. "He just makes everyone so prepared on the field."

A couple of non-related notes: I'm off to Giants Stadium now to cover tonight's game. Well, that's not exactly accurate. I'm assisting on our coverage. Or, as Glauber would say when I'm not around, "detracting" from Newsday's coverage. I will not, however, be making a blog post on the game unless for some unfathomable reason a Jets happening, well, happens.

AND, by rule - and maybe even by law - I have to be off tomorrow so Jim Baumbach, always willing to travel anywhere [he dressed up as a NASCAR pit crew member over the summer for chassis' sakes] will be filling in. But I'm not leaving for Miami until Saturday morning so I'll be away but not so much. In fact, I will give my predicted score for the game, which I know blog commenter Scott P is waiting for.

Instead of my usual dose - which can very little, admittedly - of pre-press conference wit and charm, I arrived late this morning because I took a left instead of a right from my hotel in Parsippany and blah, blah...yeah, I got here about 40 minutes later than I wanted. But going through some of the comments from last night I saw one that was worth bringing out here (they're ALL worthy of that in some fashion, of course) in the big space.

Anyway, it was from a reader, Jeff. Here's part of what he wrote:

"i do agree this is a trap game. but it's a trap for the media, not the jets. i mean, put aside all the juicy media storylines and name one player on the dolphins who should scare the jets? this game will be a blowout. as CG noted, how is it all of a sudden the dolphins are a tough team to beat when chad is the QB. just three weeks ago he was just the weaklink on a much better team -- and the success of the team was being questioned bc of his lack of ability. it's illogical. it's as if the fins were the team in need of the missing QB piece instead of the jets. it's the world upside down. the dolphins are a borderline expansion team outside of pennington and their two RBs."

So is that the case? Are the people covering the team, including myself, making too much of the "trap" nature of Sunday? Jeff raises some good points, though I think Ricky Williams, Pennington and a more physical - at least based on the preseason - are all legitimate concerns. But I could be wrong (yes, Darrell, I know I often am) and might be overstating Miami's hand. Though, in the end, I think the Jets will escape with a win.

Anyway, I know cutting and pasting a reader's comment is a cop-out blog post of sorts but, alas, no GPS system in the Solara is your loss. Or gain depending on perspective.

Okay, same schedule as yesterday: Eric Mangini at 10:15 followed by locker room access and then 30 minutes of practice viewing. I'll have more.

P.S. A thank you to the readers of this blog familiar with the Florham Park area who have posted various suggestions or simply a "welcome." While I'm not moving from Long Island, I'll be spending a lot of time here so your comments specific to that were/are appreciated.

Well, I was wrong. Indeed, for Chad Pennington, Sunday's game is like any other.

"I’m excited because I have a chance to start and play this game," Pennington just said on a conference call. "And there’s nothing like opening day in the NFL. I think it’s an exciting time for all NFL players and when you get a chance to help lead a team it’s exciting. So on the outside, with the hype around the game and with all the transactions that have happened between the two teams, one would think it’s a revenge game or a statement game or anything like that, but I don’t approach it that way. I approach it as our opening day game, which is exciting for all of us."

Jets coach Eric Mangini and Dolphins coach Tony Sparano gave similar "one of 16" answers.

Brett Favre, as always, gave the most honest response of the day regarding this topic.

"You know, if I was playing against the Packers this week, it would feel a little bit different obviously."

Oh, to talk about this or anything else NFL related, our NFL columnist Bob Glauber will be doing a live chat at 3 p.m. Today. Meaning just about now.