04/07 — Can't get enough of that Left Coast.

As you know, the Jets have four trips to the Pacific ahead (San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco and Seattle) in '08. And I'm so glad that I'm leaving for San Francisco late this afternoon for a preliminary scouting trip.

The City by the Bay is the venue for this year's NFL business meetings, which run from Tuesday through the week. I'm ambivalent about adding a fifth trip passing through four time zones in this calendar year. Who wants to sit on a sold-out 737 for seven hours?

But once there, I'll adjust, and the information at the meetings regarding optimizing our Web site, increasing the synergy between the league and its 32 team Internet operations will be invaluable as we set out to keep you entertained and informed for the 2008 season.

I can tell you this. We can always improve our metrics, but one number jumps out for me from my first year on the job as editor-in-chief of newyorkjets.com: This past week we posted our 10,000th comment from you the fans who have responded to our Radar entries since last year's draft. To me, that's amazing.

My five flights to the West Coast this year ahead will break a personal record. As it is, the Jets' four trips to the Pacific and/or Mountain time zones will make their 2008 schedule the longest in franchise history.

Long-time fans will remember the Denver-Oakland-Los Angeles/San Diego three-game road trips the Titans played in 1960 and '61. And back-to-back games, either Oakland-San Diego, Oakland-Denver or Denver-San Diego, were staples of each season from 1962-69.

But since then, a season with even three countrywide trips is unusual and has required a playoff game to get to that number. The consecutive Oakland trips to end the 2001 season set the stage for '02 and three West Coast trips (San Diego, Oakland and back to Oakland in the playoffs) in a 10-week span. And in '04 there were the two trips to play the Chargers, in Week 2 and then in the AFC Wild-Card Game, with an Arizona trek tossed in between.

Still no word on the '08 NFL schedule, but this was the week last year when the full '07 schedule was released. And when the Jets' order of games is unveiled, I wouldn't be surprised to see a two-game West Coast road trip on the docket — it almost can't be avoided. Then a question would be: Would head coach Eric Mangini want to make four cross-country flights (two out and two back) in a 10-day span, or would he want to keep the Jets out on the coast for the week in between the two games?

All will be revealed soon. And Eric Allen and I will continue to keep you posted throughout the week, on club matters that come up in San Francisco and on team issues back in Hempstead, N.Y., where the players continue their work toward attacking that now-not-so-distant 2008 schedule.