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Today was a quiet day at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center. The players were off to the annual Kickoff Luncheon at Cipriani Wall Street today, and then after some team-building activities it was on by bus to Center City, Philadelphia, tonight.

Then comes a long day’s journey into night as many of the Jets on the back end of the 75-player roster will be playing Thursday night against the Eagles at the Linc for a roster spot this season and maybe for their pro careers. It can be a time of nervous introspection or even fear of the unknown.

Unless you’re Brashton Satele. If the free agent rookie linebacker’s got butterflies heading into this important game for him, he’s netted them up and mounted them in his collection book.

“Never. It’s never going to be the end,” Satele said plainly when I asked him if he contemplated if football would be over for him if he’s waived by Saturday morning. “I’m going to try my best to get where I want to be. I believe you become what you believe. Whatever you want to be, you just have to believe it and you become it. Nothing in life comes easy, so you just have to keep fighting for what you want.”

Such quiet, unshakable belief has always fascinated me as I’ve covered the NFL for more decades than I care to admit. Where did Brashton’s conviction come from?

“From my church, Pastor Art Sepulveda,” he said. “He’s the owner of Word of Life Academy in Hawaii. He installed that into me a long time ago. I took that going from high school to college and from college to here.”

Satele’s in an odd position because while every free agent has a story for why he wasn’t drafted, the University of Hawaii product has an especially painful tale. Head coach Rex Ryan said up at SUNY Cortland that Brashton’s “one of those under-the-radar guys who showed up and is doing a great job for us.”

But on an edition of “Hard Knocks,” the defensive coaches were overheard saying “the kid’s hurt all the time.” Satele heard that observation and he just wants to remind that there have been two injuries he’s had to fight through.

One was the torn shoulder muscle at Hawaii. He played with it all junior season but didn’t get it surgically repaired until he retore it last summer before his senior season. So he went from a lower-round draft pick off of 32 value boards.

Then came day 3 of camp, when he left practice with an ankle injury.

“I’m still waiting for it to get 100 percent so I can show my full ability,” he said. “It’s frustrating because it’s kind of aching and sore but there’s nothing I can do about it. No one in footballs 100 percent. I just have to push through it.”

Despite having that stacked against him, he went out for the entire fourth quarter of the Redskins preseason game and made a pair of solo tackles on defense.

“That was my first game since December ’08,” he said with a smile. “So it was exciting. It was good to finally get out there and go full-speed.”

Because of the injuries to Satele, Josh Mauga and Calvin Pace, the Jets have brought in a passel of ‘backers recently, such as Boris Lee, Tim Knicky and Tuesday’s waiver pickup of Ricky Foley, a 12-sack man in the CFL last year. Add in guys with experience like Lance Laury and Kenwin Cummings and Cory Reamer and the depth chart is looking like a bus station at the moment. Some are more suited for outside than inside work, but all want jobs and most are not guaranteed anything other than an opportunity some time Thursday night in the south section of the City of Brotherly Love.

That’s all Satele wants.

“I’m just ready to go out there,” he said, “to do my best and show the coaches what they want to see. I just want to be explosive, physical. I want to be myself out there.”

Sports Illustrated has its annual NFL preview issue hitting the stands this week, and the Jets will be featured on their Northeast cover. The shot, which was taken last Friday at New Meadowlands Stadium, features center Nick Mangold set to hike the ball as quarterback Mark Sanchez surveys the Redskins’ defense. 

Staff writer Ben Reiter provided the preview for the Jets and the entire AFC East. Reiter says, “The Jets are a brash and entertaining mishmash of  highly skilled specialists brought together in the hope that they will collectively achieve that greatest of NFL heists: making off with the Super Bowl trophy, which the franchise hasn’t won in 42 years.”

In all, SI has five regional covers. Sanchez is scheduled to speak with the media today, so we should get his reaction shortly.

Rex Ryan had a few simple reasons for why the Jets waived quarterback Kevin O’Connell today. At the top of the list …

“We’re getting closer to Baltimore,” the Jets head coach said at his daily news conference this afternoon. “Quite honestly, the more things we put in, we don’t need that information going out.”

It’s a long-standing NFL tradition, certainly not invented by Bill Parcells, Eric Mangini or Rex Ryan: Bring in a player for a week or a month or even a season to help provide intelligence off the field while providing competition on it.

But with Ryan’s coaching staff installing the offensive and defensive game plans for the season opener against the Ravens on Sept. 13 (while prepping the twos and threes for their preseason finale at Philadelphia on Thursday), he figured the less O’Connell has to pass on to his next team about the Jets, the better.

But Rex wants O’Connell to play long and prosper.

“This gives him an opportunity for some teams who are looking for quarterbacks,” Ryan said about waiving the third-year signalcaller ahead of Saturday’s final NFL cutdown to 53 players. “I was pretty high on him. He’s a big, smart, athletic guy. But at the end of the day we went with Kellen, who’s maybe not as tall or as pretty but who outplayed him. That’s why we quite honestly chose him.”

Clemens, Ryan amplified from Monday’s remarks, was going to be on the Jets unless another team had been interested in allowing the Jets’ second-round pick in 2006 to come in as its starter.

“I would’ve traded him. I told him I would do the right thing for him, if someone was going to give him an opportunity to be a starter,” the coach said. “But he was going to be on this football team.”

O’Connell was originally a third-round pick of the Patriots in the 2008 draft out of San Diego State. He was waived by the Pats last summer, Detroit signed him, then the Jets traded with the Lions for him on Sept. 6.

O’Connell was inactive for all 19 games last season, although he was listed as the Jets’ third QB for four games — Games 2 and 10 against New England, Game 13 at Tampa Bay and the AFC Divisional Round Game at San Diego.

This preseason he made his only appearances as a Jet. He played against the Giants and the Panthers in the first two games and did not appear against the Redskins. His final preseason passing numbers were 8-for-16 for 70 yards, two INTs, no sacks and a 22.4 rating.

Pace Prognosis

It remains to be seen whether some unofficial initial reports of Calvin Pace missing 4-6 weeks from Monday’s foot surgery pan out, but they were not the official prognosis and Ryan offered a cautiously optimistic forecast for the OLB’s return to action.

“He’s doing really well. … The doctors seem to think the surgery was really successful. They’re very excited about it,” Rex said. “But we’ll see how it happens, no infections and all that kind of stuff. We feel confident he’s going to definitely miss the first week. We’ll see about the second week. I’m not sure.”

Newest Jet: Ricky Foley

The Jets, who have been intrigued by Larry Taylor’s contributions this preseason, have gone back to the CFL by way of Seattle when they were awarded LB Ricky Foley on waivers from the Seahawks today to fill their available 75th roster spot heading into the Philadelphia preseason finale.

Foley, from York University in Toronto, was a Canadian league star, a first-round pick of the British Columbia Lions in the 2006 CFL draft who became a Lions starter last season.

Although he was with the Seahawks most of this year, he has one other NFL connection. In 2006 he spent time on the offseason roster of the Baltimore Ravens, whose D-coordinator at that time was none other than Rex Ryan.

The question posed to Rex Ryan this afternoon was if, heading into the final preseason game at Philadelphia on Thursday night, Kellen Clemens is on the bubble.

Said Rex: “I would say he’s got a pretty strong chance of making this team.”

Said Kellen: “Score! It’s a heck of a lot better than it could’ve been.”

Many who’ve tried to handicap the Jets’ quarterback depth chart behind starter Mark Sanchez thought Clemens would be moving on, if only  because, as the fifth-year man acknowledged, “I think I’m a little more expensive than Kevin [O'Connell] is.”

KC channeled Yogi Berra on whether he’ll be on the Jets’ 53-man roster this season. “It certainly isn’t over till it’s over,” he said. “I think history has proven that.”

But he’s rolled with the punches and come off the deck in the first week up at Cortland to make a case that he still should be wearing the green and white.

“My approach has been pretty consistent. I didn’t get a chance to compete for the No. 2 job,” he said. “That’s one of those areas I was a little frustrated by earlier in camp. You’ve got to put your head down and push through it.”

He knows he hasn’t put up any big numbers in his preseason opportunities. He didn’t play against Washington and in the first two games his six drives resulted in three field goal attempts, two punts and a Joe McKnight lost fumble at Carolina. But he also knows what the practice grades say.

“Statistically, I haven’t blown anything away. My percentage is good, yards aren’t real high, I haven’t thrown a touchdown,” he said. “But from how I’ve graded out with the coaches, it’s been my best preseason ever”

Clemens will get to show a little more of his progress from that frustration at learning Mark Brunell, signed the week before camp started, was the No. 2. As Ryan said about his quarterback rotation for the Eagles game:

“Mark [Sanchez] will be the only one who doesn’t play. I anticipate us playing the other three, Brunell, Clemens and O’Connell.” In that order? “Probably … OK, since I mentioned them that way, let’s do it that way.”

Is this a critical game for Clemens then to survive final cuts, likely to be announced Saturday?

“I wouldn’t put it in the critical stage,” Ryan said, adding of others on the now 75-man roster, “Some of them are on life support.”

Rex Cetera

Ryan said of Brunell, who is thus in line to get the start against the Jets, “This is his best week so far in practice. I think he’s catching up to the playbook. He’s throwing it well this week.” But Rex added about the second offense, “I think we’d all feel a little better if we moved the ball.” Brunell’s eight series have ended in six punts (five three-and-outs) and two lost fumbles.

The coach had no updates on any Jets interest in free agent LB Adalius Thomas. “We need to play this game and find out exactly how we have the roster set up,” he said. “Really, we need to give these guys a good look, a good, hard look.”

Calvin Pace, who broke his foot when it appeared that Redskins RT Stephon Heyer landed on it during a third-quarter pass rush Friday night, is scheduled to have surgery on the foot in Charlotte, N.C., at 5 p.m. today.

Ryan gave an injury report, even though his first injury report of the season isn’t required by the league until next Wednesday. Did not practice: T Damien Woody (lower back), S Brodney Pool (ankle), LB Kenwin Cummings (shoulder), G Charlie Tanner (knee) and S Donovan Warren (head). DE Shaun Ellis and LB Josh Mauga were limited.

Jets LB Bart Scott has never been one to mince words. And when he was asked today about the defense’s loss of OLB Calvin Pace, “the Madbacker” told reporters during a conference call that the injury was a big blow for the defense.

“Losing Calvin is tremendous because he helps us do so much,” Scott said.

After breaking his right foot during the Jets’ 16-11 loss to the ‘Skins Friday night, Pace will undergo surgery on his right foot and will be lost for weeks. This marks the second consecutive year the Jets will start the season without one of their finest athletes as Pace was suspended for the first quartet of games in 2009 after violating the league’s performance-enhancing substance policy.

“Fortunately enough, we felt that loss last year and started off 3-0. You just have to do some things a little differently,” Scott said. “He gives us so much flexibility with his ability to rush the passer and also cover tight ends and play out in space.”

Despite playing 12 regular-season games in ‘09, the 6’4”, 265-pound Pace racked up eight sacks and had his sights set on double digits in 2010. With star CB Darrelle Revis still engaged in a holdout two weeks away from the opener, the Green & White face the possibility of starting the season Sept. 13 against Baltimore without two of their best defensive players.

“We have a game plan, we have a defense and a way we go about things when Calvin’s not there. It’s no different if a guy got hurt or Darrelle is hurt. We have to find other ways to get to our goal,” said Scott.

“By no means, by losing those two guys, do our expectations drop. What that means is other guys have to take on a little bit more on their plate and do so some things they might not do all the time. A guy who rushes the passer may have to do a little bit more coverage. A guy who does coverage may have to blitz a little bit more.”

The Jets may elect to add depth to their OLBs by signing free agent Adalius Thomas. Scott was a teammate of Thomas’ in Baltimore from 2002-06, but he says the two haven’t talked recently about AT reuniting with head coach Rex Ryan.

“I haven’t spoken with Adalius,” said Scott. “Of course he’s a friend of mine, I love him to death. But those decisions are left up to the personnel department to figure out who can help us out because that would give us a lot of outside linebackers. We have to address other needs — we lost [DE] Ropati [Pitoitua] as well — so it will be interesting.”

The Jets added Jason Taylor in the offseason to keep both Pace and Bryan Thomas fresh and help the D finish games. But Taylor, who will turn 36 on Wednesday, will get the start against the Ravens in Week 1 and he could be there for a while.

“He can do the job. You’re talking about a future Hall of Famer that played in a 3-4 probably three of his past four seasons,” said Scott of the NFL’s active sack leader in Taylor, who totaled seven sacks last year in Miami. “He’s comfortable standing up and we all know he’s athletic enough to handle the demands of the position.”

Expectations won’t change for the defense. A unit that led the NFL in seven of nine major defensive categories in 2009 continues to carry on without Revis and will once again adjust without Pace.

“Whenever you lost two quality players like that, it’s going to be tremendously difficult to try to stay at that same level,” Scott said. “But we just have to adjust the way we attack and do things a little differently and not have as much flexibility as we would like. I think we can still get the job done. We just have to go about it in a different way.”

Jason Taylor does “bemused” well. And you’d have to forgive the venerable linebacker a bemused smile or two when the questions came at him immediately after the Jets’ game against Washington on Friday night.

“This won’t be my first rodeo,” Taylor said with a smile.

The questions were regarding the state of the Jets without OLB Calvin Pace for a few weeks. Pace injured his foot against the Redskins and will miss “a few weeks,” said Rex Ryan. The head coach is expected to provide an update on Pace’s situation on a conference call with reporters this afternoon.

But if the prognosis remains the same, the upshot is that Taylor, whom many saw as a situational — read: pass-rushing — addition when the Jets signed him as an unrestricted free agent, may well be an NFL opening-day starter for the 12th consecutive season and the 13th in his 14 seasons as a pro.

“You want to play. Obviously, it’s very unfortunate that something happened to Calvin,” Taylor said. “It’s my job to step up and help. Do I think i can do it? Yeah, that’s what I do.”

That’s what he did last season, when he returned from the ‘Skins to the Dolphins and started at the strong OLB spot for Matt Roth, who missed the first half of the season with a groin injury.

“From the beginning of training camp, I started at a spot I never played before. That’s a lot more new than what we’re doing now.”

Taylor said he’s more at ease now in the Jets’ scheme than he’s been since he got here, which you would expect.

“There’s a couple of plays, a couple of calls where you’ve got to stop and think real quick or check with BT or Calvin on what we have,” he said. “But it’s probably down to one or two calls I do that with.

“So yeah, I feel good. I’m feeling comfortable and confident mentally, and the physical will always fall on the mental.”

Will there be a dropoff for the Jets if Pace misses much time? Could be, especially because Pace told my partner Eric Allen the other day that he’s fired up and focused on 10-plus sacks this season. But Taylor looks plenty good so far as well. JT knows starts — he’s got 192 in 13 previous NFL regular seasons — and he knows sacks — he’s got 127.5, most among active players.

And let’s not forget Jamaal Westerman, whose time it may be to take on an increased workload, the workload, in fact, that Taylor was going to get in the base rotation with Pace and Bryan Thomas and in the sub front line.

Taylor even showed the old-pro part of his mental game when asked about what the Jets need to do team-wise to be ready for their Sept. 13 season opener against the Ravens. He didn’t shy away from making some observations on the offense, but he knows his unit and the team are most important.

“We need to take care of the ball better as a team, No. 1 — you can’t win in this league turning the ball over. It’s darn near impossible,” he said. “We need to play a little better defense in certain situations, not giving up third downs. I think the first group did a pretty good job at times, but they still got some first downs and a couple passes against us. And I think offensively, we want to put more points on the board. They’re working on that. But we need to mow our own grass on the defensive side and get ourselves ready to go.”

No mowing necessary at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center. Blake Hoerr and his grounds crew do a great job of that. And none required on the New Meadowlands Stadium FieldTurf. But for a short while, Taylor will be in the starting lineup as the defense plans to cut down opposing offenses without Calvin Pace.

Update, 2:45 p.m.: Rex Ryan on his just concluded conference call with reporters said Pace suffered what he believed was a broken bone in Pace’s foot and will need surgery. He said Pace is in North Carolina now to have a specialist “take care of it.” Rex: “We’ll know more about the extent of the injury obviously after the surgery. We’re feeling good that it could be a speedy recovery but anytime you have surgery, we don’t have the specifics. But he’s definitely going to miss the first game, I think that’s pretty safe to say.”

When the Jets signed Laveranues Coles, there were no guarantees. And on Sunday, just two days after their third preseason game, the Green & White released Coles and waived three others players: WRs Marcus Henry and Aundrae Allison and DE Rodrique Wright.

The 5’11”, 200-pound Coles caught four balls for 19 yards in summer action. Last week he told reporters he was hopeful of playing a lot in the preseason finale at Philadelphia on Thursday, but he said “the clock is ticking” on his playing career.

“It’s pretty much here. Unless somebody makes me an offer I can’t refuse, which I doubt will happen, this is it,” Coles said. “Once the buck stops here, I’m done. I started here and that’s what I’m thankful for. I’ll be here in some capacity in the future. It might not be playing ball here, but I will be around the building so that’s one of the positive things about it.”

Head coach Rex Ryan, on a conference call with reporters this afternoon, wasn’t ruling out a return by Coles in the weeks ahead once the season starts.

“That’s definitely a possibility,” Ryan said. “Laveranues did an outstanding job for us. He’s a leader. I know he knows the system, he’s tougher than nails, a great teammate. I think that’s a real possibility.”

A third-round pick of the Jets back in 2000, he ranks fourth in franchise annals in receptions (459), fifth in receiving yards (5,941) and tied for fifth in touchdown catches (37). Last season, LC played with the Cincinnati Bengals and finished with 43 receptions for 514 yards and five TDs.

Henry, a sixth-round pick of the Jets out of Kansas in 2008, didn’t catch a ball this preseason after spending time on the practice squad in ’09. Allison, who possesses very good speed, had three receptions vs. the Giants to open the preseason but didn’t post any stats the past two games. He played 26 games and had 18 receptions for the Vikings in 2007-08, and his 104-yard kickoff return vs. Detroit on Dec. 2, 2007, established the mark for longest play in team history.

After DE Ropati Pitoitua went down with an Achilles’ injury against Carolina, “Hard Knocks” cameras got footage of Ryan asking Wright if he wanted to make the team. Wright may not now have that chance. He signed with New York’s AFC representative in March after starting nine games for the Dolphins in 2007, recording 37 tackles, 1.5 sacks and one fumble recovery.

The Jets roster now stands at 75 players, complying with the NFL’s Tuesday roster deadline. In the two o’clock hour, Coach Ryan will address the media on a conference call. We’ll have more details on that call later this afternoon.

The Jets are expected to have a more balanced offensive attack in 2010, but don’t expect them to go away from Ground & Pound anytime soon. In the final summer dress rehearsal for the starters tonight, the Green & White’s run game looked to be in midseason form against the Redskins as LaDainian Tomlinson, a shifty and explosive future Hall of Famer, and Shonn Greene, a bulldozer in just his second season, proved to be a prolific pair.

In three quarters of work, Tomlinson and Greene combined for 142 yards on the ground. They were effective immediately as the 5’11”, 226-pound Greene rushed three times on the Jets’ opening drive for 18 yards. That helped them get out of the gates with an early lead as Nick Folk was true from 45 yards.

But it was Tomlinson who electrified fans with a charge of his own, displaying his legendary footwork and vision as he got free off left tackle for a 43-yard boost.

“We’re going to work well together,” Tomlinson said of him and Greene. “As you can see, he comes in and runs over people and pounds people, and I come in and slash, so we’re thunder and lightning. That’s what we’re going to be.”

That 43-yard chunk was Tomlinson’s 15th touch of the preseason — the most ever for the former Charger in his 10-year NFL career.

“It was a zone scheme and I cut it back. The line did a great job of pushing everybody back. Once I cut it back, I had the safety coming downhill and I knew he was coming too fast to be able to tackle me once I made a move on him,” he said. “I made the move on him and kind of hit my receiver a little bit, trying to get behind him and kept my balance and was able to get up the field.”

Despite turning 31 in June, Tomlinson is a man on a mission and he brings a big-play capability the Jets didn’t have in the backfield when they opened the 2009 regular season. With less than five minutes remaining in the opening half, LT got low and bounced out to the edge while gaining 16 yards up the left sideline. Then with just seconds before intermission, his 14-yard scamper out of a shotgun draw allowed New York’s AFC representative to attempt a 62-yard Folk field goal.

When the Jets signed Tomlinson in the offseason to join an emerging force in Greene, many wondered who would start. But it looks like the Jets have two No. 1 backs capable of doing damage and sharing the load. In the first half, Greene carried eight times for 36 yards and Tomlinson also got eight carries for a scintillating 85 yards.

“What we did today was great,” Greene said. “I think we can do a lot better than that if we played the whole game and wore the defense down. We’ll be a dangerous combination.”

Trailing, 9-5, with 6:46 left in the third, Rex Ryan elected to keep his first offense in for one final possession. The result was the starters’ second TD in the preseason as a 15-play, 72-yard march took the home team into the fourth quarter and ended on a scoring hookup from Mark Sanchez to Dustin Keller. But Greene and Tomlinson figured prominently once again with Greene rushing twice for 16 yards to get the drive going and then No. 21 getting exactly 9 on a third-down catch to keep the chains moving inside the red zone.

“That was a big play. We obviously needed that to put points on the board. Anytime you’re in third-down situations, we’re thinking first down and continue that drive,” said Tomlinson as the Jets got to the ‘Skins 11. “I knew that the guys had kind of got out of there and they were going to leave me room to work. Once Mark threw it to me, I turned around and saw a couple of guys but I was able to get to the first-down marker before I got tackled.”

Even though the running game got on track, the Jets’ ones turned the ball over twice in opposing territory and the Green & White didn’t throw the ball consistently. But they can again hang their hat on another solid rush performance as last year’s No. 1 ground attack — which didn’t used slash weapon Brad Smith in the backfield in preseason play — averaged a healthy 5.0 yards on 32 carries.

“One thing I think people need to understand is we’ve been very vanilla this preseason,” said Tomlinson, who called the Jets line the best he’s been around. “We’ve run basic plays, and I know at times it doesn’t look like we’re doing very good, but these are basic plays we’re running so we’re executing them. We won’t really game-plan until the season starts, so we’re doing fine.”

It’s been more than four years since Wayne Chrebet retired, but he still just doesn’t look comfortable on the sideline with a button-down shirt and baseball cap.

“It’s weird. I came out here and saw the team practicing and I was kind of all choked up,” Chrebet told me Wednesday evening after the Jets’ final open practice of the summer at Hofstra. “I said, ‘I can’t watch this stuff.’ I miss it. I miss playing. But I live through these guys and I’m excited to see what they’re going to do this year.”

Always the competitor, Chrebet talked proudly about both his sons, Lucas Kane (8), and Cane Jagger (6), and their involvement with seemingly every sport besides football. In fact, both boys are scheduled to earn black belts in karate next year.

And that’s fitting considering the 5’10”, 188-pound Chrebet symbolized the fighting spirit of Jets Nation throughout his career, walking on to the Green & White after a stellar career at Hofstra and catching 580 balls for 7,365 yards and 41 TDs. Those numbers rank second, third and third respectively in franchise annals.

Chrebet, who appeared in six playoff games himself, thinks the current Jets are in for good things this year and beyond.

“I think they’re stacked. I thought they were a good team last year, but the acquisitions they made in the offseason, the draft and re-signing guys — they’re a good team and they’re going to a be a good team for a while,” he said. “They have some young, good players.”

After starting last season with a relatively green wide receiving crew other than Jerricho Cotchery, the Jets went the trade route to add Braylon Edwards and Santonio Holmes. Brad Smith has become a playmaker in his own right and even Laveranues Coles has jumped back on board for a third time.

“I talked to [WRs coach] Henry Ellard just now and said, ‘You’re going to have some fun this year.’ Great players, good team players too,” said No. 80. “I met some of them and I think big things will come this year.”

You wonder what it would have been like if Chrebet had the chance to play for Rex Ryan. Can you imagine an episode of “Hard Knocks” and all the #$%! superlatives Ryan would have thrown the old-school player’s way.

“I love Rex. He’s my kind of coach. I played with Parcells and he has that same kind of swagger to him,” said Chrebet. “Rex just tells you how he feels and you want to play for a guy like that, that’s confident in you.”

Before Chrebet departed into the night to check on Bar Social, a Hempstead watering hole he’s still involved in despite dropping the name Chrebet’s, he told me, “Just in case they need me, I’ll be back.”

An ultimate gamer, you’d expect nothing less from the man who defined heart throughout his career.

“I haven’t been back here in a while but it’s actually weird coming out here and seeing green and white,” he said as he glanced at Shuart Stadium. “I haven’t been to any practices, but I see how the fans are. They’re excited about the year — it’s good.”

It’s been a this-is-your-life week in a victory-lap season for Laveranues Coles.

On Wednesday night there was the Jets’ practice return to Hofstra, a place that Coles called his professional home from 2000-02 and again from ’05 until the Jets moved to the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center on Sept. 1, 2008.

“I may shed a tear, hug a few people I haven’t seen in a while,” Coles said before the trip to Long Island. “I definitely don’t miss the locker room but it is what it is.”

Another touchstone for the now 11th-year wideout has been “Hard Knocks.” He’s the only Jet who’s been involved in the last two NFL Films/HBO summer series.

“Those cameras have been around for a while so you kind of forget they’re there,” LC said. “And being in New York, there’s cameras everywhere anyway. It’s different in Cincinnati, where the only camera you might find is one of your teammates’ camera phones.”

And capping off this short week is Friday night’s third preseason game and second Jets game ever at New Meadowlands Stadium against Coles’ team in 2003-04, the Washington Redskins.

“I’m very thankful to Daniel Snyder for building my home down in Jacksonville for me,” Coles said with easy laugh. The Redskins owner, he said, “gave me an opportunity when other people wouldn’t. I went in and gave him 110 percent of everything I had. I’ve always been that way everywhere I went. But that’s where it stops. It’s one of those things where I appreciate the opportunity. But that’s not home. This is where it all started for me. I’m back here. These are the people that gave me a chance again. I’m thankful for that.”

Who would’ve thought, having seen the young, brooding Laveranues Coles in that cramped Weeb Ewbank Hall locker room as the team’s third-round draft pick in 2000, that he’d turn into a nostalgic old pro a decade later? Even he makes fun of his stern visage back in the day: “That’s another Laveranues. Who would do such a thing? I don’t even like people like that.”

He’s evolved personally even as he’s evolved professionally. The young LC would have been upset with what he describes today as his potential “break glass in case of emergency” role. He’s worked with the second and third offenses, so much so that he says of Mark Sanchez, “I don’t even get a chance to get in the huddle with the guy. I couldn’t even tell you if he smelled like Ben-Gay.” He knows he may not get much visibility against the Redskins as the starters work on into the third quarter. He knows not what the future may hold on final-cut day or after Game 4, when Santonio Holmes returns.

And he’s OK with that.

“I feel good about what I’m doing. I’m in an offense that I’ve known. Now it’s just about me getting an opportunity to go out and play and show what I can do,” Coles said. “Whether it happens or not, I don’t know, but just the fact that they gave me a chance to come in and be a part of this team is something I’m thankful for. So I’m not complaining, I’m not upset, I’m not any of those things. If the opportunity arises, I’ll grab it and take off with it. But if it doesn’t, I know the circumstances I came in here under and I’ll deal with it.”

Coles — who admitted that before returning to the Jets in May he “clicked on Randy’s Radar whenever I got a chance” — has a few under-the-radar things he can pass on to Sanchez no matter how much he gets to play with the starting QB this season, one of them being pointers on dealing with the increasing talent at wideout.

“A little bit of advice on how to approach us without ruffling feathers, just going to the guys and letting us know what you want, ways of doing it without feeling like you’re badgering the guys,” he said. “Just giving him a little bit of knowledge before they usher me to the door on how to deal with the guys, take care of the guys.”

Coles says he feels great, both physically and mentally, especially after a few of his Jets teammates told him “You look like you’ve still got it.” He says there’s still “gas in the tank,” which he hints could become apparent in the preseason finale a week from tonight at Philadelphia, when the ones will rest most if not all of the game.

But then when the needle’s on E, “Whenever this bus stops, I’m excited because I got to be a part of this,” he said of the Jets’ promising prospects for the coming season. “That’s what’s great about it. They’ve got a great head coach, a great personality, front office and management, people who helped me out, molded me into the personality I am today. And that’s what I’m thankful for.”

Rex Ryan and his coaching staff will decide if, when and for how long the Laveranues Victory Tour Bus runs this season. But remembering the receiver and blocker, playmaker and warrior LC’s been over the years, it’s hard not to wish this homebody a fantastic finish to his playing career.