09/03 — One storyline tonight will be the Jets backups trying to win jobs tonight in the final stop before the regular season.

Another is the same Jets backups trying to track down Eagles backup QB Michael Vick for the better part of this game at the Meadowlands.

There was a touching exchange a few minutes ago, around 6:15 p.m., after Vick had come out with the Philly signalcallers. He exchanged a warm handshake and hug from Jets kicker Jay Feely.

That wasn't a spur-of-the-moment encounter. Feely has been working behind the scenes to help the man who spent close to two years in federal prison from his dogfighting conviction in his return to the NFL, initially by giving a reference when called upon by former Colts coach Tony Dungy.

"Then it was me reaching out, just expressing my hopefulness for Mike through Tony," Feely told Matt Gagne of the Daily News. "I definitely want to see him and give him a big hug."

Hug accomplished, but soon, of course, the Jets will be trying to reach out and touch Vick to the Meadowlands turf tonight.

Head coach Rex Ryan's plans are to play his starters for one series before bringing in the twos and threes. One player who's in uniform but whose availability is still up in the air is rookie RB Shonn Greene, who sat out the Giants game with sore ribs from the Ravens game.

And one new Jets who is not in uniform is just-signed veteran TE Ben Hartsock, who was ticketed to wear uniform No. 48 if he played tonight. But the tight ends came out as a group earlier and he was not among the foursome who went through their warmups.

Besides Hartsock, DE Mike DeVito will not dress. He has a leg injury that Ryan said was not serious, but DeVito will be needed a week from Sunday when the Jets open at Houston and Shaun Ellis will be sitting out his one-game suspension.

Todd Herremans, the Eagles' starting LG, is not suiting up, but that's a formality since Philly coach Andy Reid has announced that 21 of his 22 starters on offense and defense will not start, which has been his habit in these preseason finales vs. the Jets.

An hour before kickoff, when only a few players were on the field, Jets owner Woody Johnson walked out, picked up a loose ball and threw a pass a touch high and wide to an assistant coach. Woody came up rotating his right shoulder as if he needed to loosen up more. Secondary coach Dennis Thurman, even though a career DB, gave the boss a few pointers on throwing a tight spiral.

From then Mr. J went over to the Jets bench, where Ryan was out early. The two chatted at the 40 while the early warmups continued.

The Jets are in their green jerseys and white pants tonight. Under Rex they're 0-2 in green/white, 1-0 in last weekend's double whites. Under Eric Mangini, the Jets were 7-3 in green/white during the preseason. What does it mean? Absolutely nothing.

The referee is Ron Winter, who has worked about a dozen Jets games over the past decade. His last game officiating the Jets was last year's 26-17 win at Buffalo in Game 8.

We've got about 15 minutes before we start the final tuneup for the 2009 regular season. I'll be tweeting throughout the game and writing the game story afterward, Eric Allen will be moderating tonight's CoveritLive live chat and writing after the game, and Kyle Richardson will reporting on a key player out of the game for the Friday morning hours. However you choose to follow the Jets, enjoy the game.