10/04 — Concussions came up today at head coach Eric Mangini's recently concluded morning news conference when he said he wanted to clarify an injury situation.

"Erik Coleman's injury has been changed from head injury to concussion," Mangini said. "That will be reflected today on the injury report."

That triggered a number of questions from reporters. Asked whether his starting safety will miss any time, the coach said:

"We'll evaluate it as we go. We take concussions extremely seriously. He'll be out for practice today and we'll see how it goes the rest of the week."

No. 26 was not seen on the field during the half-hour of media availability at the beginning of today's practice, and his injury status will be updated after 4 p.m.

Mangini said Coleman's concussion symptoms didn't develop until the days after the Sunday night flight home from Buffalo. He supported the protocols of the Jets' medical and coaching staffs that are used after a suspected concussion and came into play when Coleman's situation developed.

"We spend a lot of time in the off-season reviewing not just the in-game protocol for evaluating concussions but the protocol after the fact in dealing with concussions," the coach said. "I feel very good about the amount of time and effort we've worked with this as a medical staff and as an organization. We've also done a lot of work on spinal cord injuries and are continuing to develop a protocol for in-game should that happen and dealing w that after the fact as well.

"Anytime a player has an issue, we always go through that protocol," Mangini said of Coleman's injury. "This was actually something that developed after the game with the symptoms and things like that. It was really postgame where it became much more apparent."

John Beattie will have a story on players in the Jets locker room discussing Coleman's situation that we'll put up under our Week 5 heading on newyorkjets.com.

In one other piece of housekeeping, Mangini announced that the Jets released OL Mike Elgin from their practice squad and signed LB Jerry Mackey to the P-squad. If Mackey's name sounds familiar, that's because Mackey is the former Freeport (N.Y.) High School and Syracuse standout who was signed as an undrafted free agent Aug. 4, then traded to Tampa Bay two weeks later for an undisclosed conditional draft pick, then cut by the Buccaneers on Sept. 1, so the pick reverted to the Bucs.

Mackey was teammates with D'Brickashaw Ferguson at Freeport High and his great-uncle is Pro Football Hall of Fame TE John Mackey.