12/30 — Normally in this spot I try to bring together some main theme of what the players are talking about in the Jets' postgame locker room. And to be sure, there was a consensus that the Jets were proud of each other for coming out of the game with the 13-10 overtime win over the Chiefs today, and how important it was for them to end this forlorn season with a victory.

But all of that gets superseded in this final postgame blog of the season with the Jets talking about Mike Westhoff.

Head coach Eric Mangini announced in his remarks after the game that the Jets' special teams coordinator since 2001 and a 35-year coach, 25 as an NFL assistant, had worked in his last game due to the ongoing medical situation surrounding his left leg.

"Mike's not going to be able to coach next season. We gave him a game ball this morning," Mangini said somberly. "It was a decision he had to make and it's something I respect. He's done so much for this team and so much for the league. He's going to still be part of the family, he just won't be here every day."

"It's just something we knew was coming, something I have to deal with," Westhoff said, leaning in front of an empty locker in the Jets' Meadowlands locker room, his crutches hiding in the next locker over. "I talked to the doctors and we set a surgery date. It's just a matter that I have to address and get taken care of or the problem will linger and can become worse. In essence, I need time to get my life back."

Westhoff, who turns 60 next week, said he just didn't know if his career is over. "I am not going to use the word 'retire'," he said. "I know I will not coach next year."

If he could come back, the Jets players on this team that make it to 2009 would be overjoyed.

"It's going to be really different without him — he's the best in the business," said TE and wedge man Chris Baker, who said he would drop in on special teams meetings he didn't have to attend just to listen to Westhoff teach and coach. "I was not nearly the special teams guy when I first got here as I am now."

"He was a good reason why I decided to come here," said David Bowens, who signed as an unrestricted free agent from the Dolphins. "When I came to visit, I spent a lot of time with Mike. He told me all the respect he had for me as a player and I told him it'd be an honor to play for him. It was short-lived, but it was great."

"Yeah, it's a complete shock," said kick returner extraordinaire Leon Washington, who heard Westhoff's announcement during this morning's team meeting. "I definitely love him and the guys on the team love him. The way he motivates guys, he demands perfection without being so demanding. The way he draws kickoff returns up, he's better than anybody in the NFL."

Washington added that it was fitting, if this indeed was Westhoff's last game, that he was sent off with a game-winning field goal. In fact, Mike Nugent had to line up to take his third game-winner four times — once until Kansas City coach Herm Edwards called a timeout, then to nail a 33-yarder, then when the kick was nullified by a penalty lining up again before Edwards called his last timeout, then finally for the 43-yard winner.

"It's been an amazing relationship," said Nugent, who impressed Westhoff way back at the 2005 combine workouts by running onto the field from 30 yards away before trying every one of his field goals. "I've learned a lot from Coach, not just kicking but in the relationship we've built."

I and the Jets reporters who've been around for a while have similar feelings about Westhoff. I talked with him back in June before his first season as the Jets coach in 2001. He regaled me with stories about his 23-foot Cobia from which he catches and releases sharks off Sanibel and Captiva islands on the west coast of Florida in the off-season, and matter-of-factly repeated the horrific story of how he snapped his left femur "right in half" while walking through the Houston airport, the bone that he found out in his late thirties was cancerous.

That's the bone he's been seeing the doctors about ever since, the one that put him on a cane, then after a season with no cane, this season on crutches.

But he never stopped coaching, goading, coaxing, leading his players in his special domain. He's proud to have won the NFL's 2000 Special Teams Coach of the Year award, presented by his peers, and to have coached five different Jets to 10 kickoff-return TDs since 2002, the most in the league over that span. He's proud not just for himself but for his men, and they in turn are proud of him.

And he leaves the Jets for his latest surgery Feb. 7 with one more sentiment of inspiration for this team after its win today.

"It's not so much an ending statement but an opening statement for next year," he said of this fourth victory that went with 12 gut-wrenching losses. "Finishing on a good note is a positive thing for 2008 for the New York Jets."

But Westhoff's retirement or hiatus, whatever it turns out to be, will inspire a lot more people than just those of the Green & White. As Bowens said:

"There'll be a lot of opposing players and coaches glad he's gone."