Erik Boland: Inside the Jets

By Tom Rock

There had been some talk that Curtis Martin would be made available to the media today, but that was pushed back to Thursday, so expect a big C-Mart story in all of your Friday papers. Not that he’s likely to say anything other than that he is working hard to come back. The fact that he has left the Jets complex early the last few times we asked about him and he wasn’t around on Monday does create something of a question though: Will he decide to hang ‘em up? Stay tuned.

A few reporters were on a conference call with Lions WR Roy Williams and walked into the locker room to find a mob of us huddled in front of Curtis’ locker. The gasp was almost audible, and I think if I rewind my recorder I can hear Andrew Gross squeal in horror at the possibility of missing the big Curtis interview. Turned out it was just Bryan Thomas sitting at a stool in front of Martin’s locker (which is next to Thomas’).

Just a thought on those two NY running backs who do the McDonald’s commercial together: it’s interesting that one is practically killing himself to come back to football while the other appears to want out of football so he doesn’t kill himself. Smart and noble aren’t always on the same wavelength.

Bobby G. stopped by this afternoon to spread some of his good cheer and check in on Gang Green after some CP in NYC this morning. Always a ray of sunshine.

Reporters are starting to pick up the Mangini dialect, using terms like “the other place” to describe New England and “fluid” to talk about positions with rotating players. Pretty soon we should all be able to recite the core Jets values, just as Mangini does on a near daily basis. For the record, they are smart, tough, hard-working, competitive, selfless, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Oh wait, some of that is from the Boy Scouts.