Jets' Jenkins planning another comeback

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. - Before his massive frame crumpled to the turf and the trainer came out to check on him, Kris Jenkins already was fully aware of what had just transpired.

"I knew the feeling when I was going down," Jets nose tackle Jenkins told Newsday Thursday. "I felt it pull away from the bone. I mean, that's not a feeling that you want to remember."

Jenkins had torn his left anterior cruciate ligament for the second time in 11 months, a depressing misfortune for someone who spent the previous 10 months feeling good about getting back to his Pro Bowl form.

Some thought the 31-year-old Jenkins would call it quits, that he might prefer to retire. But two weeks removed from surgery, the 6-4, 360-pounder wants another crack at doing what he loves most - other than being a husband and father.

Jenkins is planning to make another comeback.

He thinks he has unfinished business.

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "I don't want to go out being injured. That's just not a good look for myself. If I go out this next year and I get hurt again, 'OK, now, enough is enough. I put my best out there and it's that time to chill out.'

"But I don't think that this is the end of the road. I think just that right now, I just have some things that are stacked up against me. But I have to push through it."

Jenkins went down in the Jets' Sept. 13 season opener, getting hurt on Baltimore's sixth offensive play. While he was trying to shed a block, his leg got caught underneath him and twisted awkwardly.

All those months of rehabilitation, and just like that, he was hurt again.

"He worked so hard to get back," Bart Scott said. "He got the weight down. You just hate to see that. That's the third one . . . It's just tough, man. You know he wants to be there. Usually, when someone has hard work and dedication, it's supposed to be rewarded."

Jenkins had a different surgical procedure done this time around. Rather than using part of his hamstring, which was the case in his two previous operations, doctors used the patella tendon in his left knee.

"I did that because it's just a stronger tendon," he said, "and I need my knee to be stronger this time."

Wearing braces on both knees also should be beneficial.

"It will help just having a little extra stability," Jenkins said. "I think it's about that time."

Rex Ryan believes Jenkins can be the same disruptive force up front when he returns.

"He's kind of a genetic freak, he really is," Ryan said. "We were expecting he was going to have a huge year for us. If he would have stayed healthy, he would have really had a big year . . . But this guy is really a special player, and I'm hoping for his sake that he does it because I don't think he's through playing. I really don't."

Neither does Jenkins.

"It's important to finish it off," he said. "I've been smart, saving my money, doing things like that. I don't have any issues as far as that's concerned. It's just all about football at this point. I just want to be able to go out the way that I want to go out.

"I know what I have ahead of me, and it's going to be a tough obstacle to get myself in that type of shape to do all of those things. I know that on paper, it's a little scary.

"But I think that I can pull it off and I think I'll be fine."