Jets castoff Woodhead excelling with Pats

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - On some level, Dr. Frankenstein must have been proud of the monster he created. So it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that Rex Ryan is trying to take some of the credit for the emergence of Patriots running back Danny Woodhead.

"Remember, this guy was in football because of the New York Jets," Ryan told the New England media Wednesday in a conference call. "We kept him around for two years."

The Jets may have discovered Woodhead, but it was the Patriots who figured out how to put the 5-8 running back to use. He spent the 2008 season on injured reserve in New York and touched the football 23 times for a total of 151 yards in 2009. After playing in the opener for the Jets this season, he was waived and scooped up by the Patriots.

In 14 games - he was inactive against the Jets in Week 2 - he's had 97 carries for 547 yards and caught 34 passes for 379 yards. His 5.68 yards-per-carry average is the highest ever for a Patriots running back with 90 or more touches in a season, breaking a record set in 1976. And he's scored six touchdowns.

In the Patriots' 45-3 rout of the Jets Dec. 6, Woodhead caught four passes for 104 yards.

"It wasn't just a one-man show," Ryan said of that performance. But the Jets' coach still admitted that Woodhead's success in that game "gnawed" at him.

As quick and elusive as Woodhead can be on the field, perhaps his most impressive sidestepping is when he talks about his past with the Jets. The former D-II record-setter at Chadron (Neb.) State purposely adds as little to the flames that burn between the two franchises as he can. But he also makes it clear that he's happy things have turned out the way they have.

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"I love being here," he said Wednesday. "This is definitely where I want to be. I've had a great opportunity and I'm just trying to do the best I can and trying to get better each and every single day."

The Patriots' running game has been carried by Woodhead and BenJarvus Green-Ellis, another player who was not a household name before this season and isn't now either. The two undrafted players have lockers next to each other and have formed a bond.

"He's one of the people right from the get-go that helped me out," Woodhead said.

The Jets may have been the first team to give Woodhead an NFL roster spot, but he was always more of a novelty there. Here, in New England, even Tom Brady is calling him "great." And Ryan has had to say roughly the same, although he couched it with a backhanded stinger.

"He really is perfect for that system," he said of Woodhead's role with the Patriots. "I think Danny benefits a lot from the talents around him as well. He does have a lot of talent himself, but I think he really benefits from the other weapons they have."

Most thought the Patriots were signing him to pick his brain for a week of Jets prep and then dump him. Now, 18 weeks later, he's still helping the Patriots get ready for the Jets. Only as a budding star, not a snitch.

Woodhead said he didn't know how this season would unfold for him, and he certainly didn't have a clue about his future when the Jets waived him.

"Really, the past is the past," Woodhead said. "I'm too busy right now to really look back on what happened. I'm a New England Patriot and I think that's the most important thing, that I get ready for the next team that the New England Patriots play. It doesn't matter who it is."