12/05 — What can Brown do for you? Well, for Alvin Banks, UPS helped keep him focused on what he really wanted to do, which is to play NFL football.

So today Banks is back in the Jets' locker room, on their practice field, and helping his past and present teammates prepare, interestingly enough, for the Browns on Sunday.

"I've been home, just having a regular 9-to-5," said Banks, the running back who has been signed to the Jets' practice squad now that the Giants have snapped up Danny Ware for their active roster. "I just want to help the team by giving them a good look on defense. Hopefully that look will help me out, get me to stay around and get me in somebody's camp next year.'

Perhaps Banks' story will turn into the stuff of NFL legend, such as Kurt Warner bagging groceries or Michael Lewis driving a beer truck. The rookie free agent from James Madison was a final cut by the Jets in September and, other than getting feelers from a few other teams through his agent, hadn't played football since then until today's afternoon practice.

"I was working at UPS. I'd work from 3 o'clock in the morning until about 9. Then sometimes I'd go back in, from 1 to 6," he said, sitting in front of the same locker that Ware had occupied since being signed to the P-squad in September, right next to Laveranues Coles' locker.

"The focus is much harder. You're waiting on a phonecall, but at the same time you don't have anything to do but go to work. So you're kind of thinking, 'Should I go do this today? Should I go do that?' You've just got to keep yourself focused."

Banks had that focus when he arrived as a free agent signee after the April draft. The 5'10", 225-pounder, a regular 100-yard rusher on JMU's 2004 NCAA Division I-AA title team, made it through the Jets' postdraft minicamps. Then Ware arrived via waivers from the Titans in June. The two began jockeying for position behind Thomas Jones and Leon Washington in training camp.

Banks struck nicely with a solid Green & White scrimmage performance at Fordham in August. He had five receptions for 36 yards, including a 9-yard TD catch and a later third-down conversion that set up a field goal.

But his only preseason action came in the preseason opener against Atlanta, when he carried five times for 11 yards. Ware moved past him on the depth chart to wind up with 50 preseason carries — second-most in the NFL.

"The scrimmage just opened my eyes to the fact that I could do it. Everybody said I had a pretty good scrimmage. I came out and showed the coaches that I can play at this level," Banks said. "The highlight for me this summer was the whole thing, just going through it, getting a chance to be here. A lot of people don't get the chance to be here."

Now Banks has gotten his second chance to show again what he's got on the Jets' show team. UPS will have to deliver without him for a while.

Bubble Burst

A few players said that working in the team's practice facility all last week, with the thermostat cranked into the 80s, got them prepared for similar conditions in Miami.

Now they may have said goodbye to the bubble for the rest of the season. The rest of the schedule reads Cleveland at home, at New England and Tennessee, then back home for Kansas City — cold-weather games all.

So the Jets returned outdoors for today's workouts for the Browns. The bad parts: The weather was 28 degrees and snow was lightly falling throughout. The good part: At least they got to frolic for the first time to their comfy upper practice field, which was resodded during the bye week.