NFL preview: Super goal for focused Jets

Sione Pouha recently was driving his car, pondering the Jets' foiled opportunities to play in the Super Bowl in each of the past two seasons.

"I was thinking about the last couple of years and how we didn't get a chance to go back there," the nose tackle and defensive captain said. "Just because we were there the last couple of years, we don't expect to be there. We've got to respect the fact that, that's a respectable position -- to be in that position again.

"We've got to do everything all over again."

Still, those two words that Rex Ryan loves -- Super Bowl -- are uttered frequently in the Jets' Florham Park, N.J., training complex, constantly rolling off the tongues of players, coaches and executives. After running into roadblocks in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game in successive seasons, the Jets want to take that final leap and vault themselves into Super Bowl XLVI.

"It's definitely something we've talked about," linebacker Calvin Pace said. "From the time we get in, during the week at some point in time, we talk about our ultimate goal. But everybody knows. It's time. It's time to get to that game and take it that step further, and that's get to Indianapolis.

"It's going to start Sunday."

Pro Bowl cornerback Darrelle Revis said: "The Super Bowl runs 24/7 on our locker room and the organization, in the building. So we want to be champs; we want to be crowned champs. We've been successful the past two years, and we've just got to keep on building on the success we've already had, and keep on getting better, and hopefully one of these years it'll happen.

"We need to focus on this year and getting to that Super Bowl."

Yet at the same time, the Jets allow those painful defeats and the memories of watching the Colts and Steelers showered with confetti while they trudged off the field to fuel their desire.

"Those losses are always in the back of your mind," Revis said. "I'm sure other people have their definition of how they think of those two losses. Mine is failure. It basically is. You set your goals before the season and you try to reach them. If you don't, it's failure.

"But then you look for the next year, and you have the same goals and you try to do the same thing."

Except this time, with a different outcome.

"That is the plan," center Nick Mangold said. "We're looking forward to it. I think it's one of those things where it's tough to be disappointed in being in back-to-back opportunities to go to the Super Bowl. But our goal is to win the Super Bowl. That's what we want to do."

Mangold believes the Jets have assembled the necessary pieces to make a good run once more, particularly on offense. The team added free-agent wide receivers Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason and re-signed top wideout Santonio Holmes to provide third-year quarterback Mark Sanchez a host of threats.

"I think we have the opportunity to be as explosive as anybody in the league," Mangold said. "When Mark's slinging it around, he's got some great weapons to go to, and I'm excited to see what we can do."

It all begins against the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night for the Jets, who will be in the crosshairs once again this season.

"I think there's different sizes of bull's-eyes that we may have on our chests," Pouha said. "But I don't think there's any more critical individuals than the people in that [locker] room and the coaches and organization. We put the greatest target on ourselves, and that is the target of expectations.

"We know what we possess and we won't take nothing less than to perform that way on Sundays."