08/31 — In the Routine Excellence Department, Leon Washington had another strong showing in the preseason victory over the Giants. Before it gets lost in the buildup to the Thursday night Meadowlands visit by the Philadelphia Eagles and a certain backup quarterback, we wanted to give Leon kudos for his 174 all-purpose yards on Saturday night.

Since 1990, just five Jets have registered 170 or more APY in a preseason game, and Washington's done it twice in the past two weeks, putting him atop the NFL's preseason combined yardage list heading into the final preseason weekend. Here is the league's top five:

And here is the list of the Jets' top five top yardage games in the past 20 summers:

Speaking of Birds

The Jets have shifted into quick prep mode to prepare for the visit from Philadelphia and backup QB Michael Vick, who's expected to see a lot of action, with practices today and Tuesday at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center.

This is regular-season mode now, so the practices are closed from here on to the public and only the first 40 minutes of both practices are open to the media. Just to prepare you for the shock of the schedule change, we won't be doing full blogs and tweets from practice. We will continue providing reports from the locker room and full coverage of head coach Rex Ryan's news conferences and news alerts. (Rex's news conferences the next two days will begin at 2:50 p.m. and will be streamed live as usual on newyorkjets.com.)

Seats are still available for the Jets-Eagles game. You can go here to purchase tickets or check out availability.

Helping Out a Jets Fan

Ray Wedell just emailed us to tell us of an even bigger Jets fan: his son Scott, 17, who has been battling cancer for 18 months and seems to have things under control. Ray is the captain for the team they're calling the "New York Jets" that is walking in a cancer fundraiser in Reston, Va. If any Jets fans want to pitch in, you can visit Light The Night's Website and search for New York Jets.