10/04 — The Jets, an afterthought for a lot of national media folks before this season started, have gotten their share of attention for their 3-0 start. Now today we are less than an hour away from the start of a game that the football world will be paying close attention to: the Jets' road trip to play the equally 3-0 New Orleans Saints in the Louisiana Superdome.

The Green & White will be trying to get off to only the third 4-0 start in franchise history, following in the footsteps of the 2000 and 2004 teams. But it won't be easy here in the 'Dome, which is already loud and echoing from the sound system music and the good amount of fans who have started taking their seats.

As announced by head coach Rex Ryan on Friday, CBs Lito Sheppard (quad) and Donald Strickland (ankle) have been deactivated for the second week. Dwight Lowery again will start for Sheppard at RCB and Drew Coleman is expected to move into Strickland's nickelback role.

The Jets' other inactives: QB Kevin O'Connell, LB Ryan Fowler, G Matt Slauson, DE Ropati Pitoitua and DT Howard Green. Erik Ainge is again the third QB.

The Saints' inactives: WR Rod Harper, RB Mike Bell (NO's leading rusher), CB Malcolm Jenkins (the rookie who had a big ST impact before today), LB Jo-Lonn Dunbar, DT Kendrick Clancy, starting LT Jermon Bushrod and TE Darnell Dinkins. Third QB is Chase Daniel.

The Saints have thus moved to their third LT of the season as Zach Strief will replace Bushrod, who replaced Jammal Brown, placed on IR last week. And Remi Ayodele will start at NT for Clancy.

The Jets are in their green jerseys and white pants for today's game. No doubt a harbinger of good things — they were in green and white for Ryan's NFL head-coaching debut in the season-opening win at Houston.

For the third straight week, Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf are working the Jets game for CBS-TV. The last time one crew called three straight Jets games was in 1996 (Charlie Jones and Randy Cross for NBC). Since 2006, the Jets have won seven in a row when Gumbel-Dierdorf have been in the TV booth.

Bill Leavy is today's referee. Leavy has been the referee for eight Jets games since 2001. His first game was "the Shrek Game," the 13-12 win at Carolina, in '01. He also officiated the 2004 Jets-Steelers playoff game and Brett Favre's last start for the Jets in last season's finale vs. Miami.

As usual, I'm turning the game management now over to Eric Allen through newyorkjets.com's CoveritLive live chat interface. I'll contribute tweets on the Jets' Twitter page http://twitter.com/nyjets that also will appear in the live chat. I'll have the game story as close to the end of the game as possible, then will update that with quotes after the Jets' charter lands in the early Monday morning hours. EA will have a postgame blog and Kyle Richardson will provide a sidebar for you early risers.

USS New York Sailors on Board

There are a number of green-shirted fans in attendance in the Superdome's blue, indigo and violet seats. And among the Jets-leaning spectators will be sailors from the USS New York. Jets owner Woody Johnson contributed 300 tickets to the crew of the ship, which is docked in the New Orleans harbor and will be officially commissioned next month. The ship was built in part with more than seven tons of steel from the World Trade Center. Johnson is chairman of the commissioning committee.