04/17 — Porcelain has played a central role in a couple of Green & White anecdotes this decade.

Eight years ago, Al Groh said the enormity of becoming head coach of the Jets didn't hit him until he read all about it on a sports section tacked to the wall over a restaurant facility. Then this afternoon general manager Mike Tannenbaum had his own bathroom story about the Jets' extremely successful second-round tradeup from a year ago.

"Soon after we picked Darrelle Revis, I went to the restroom and in there I saw Bryan Cox," Mike T said during the Jets' predraft news conference. "Grudgingly, he said about Revis, 'That's a good job' — Brian's a hard guy to please. Then he said, 'Don't forget about David Harris now.'

"Bryan was the first guy to put the bug in my head that, hey, let's keep an eye on David. The chips fell as they may and we were fortunate enough to be able to move back up [in a trade with the Packers] to get David. Bryan at least put it on our radar."

We suspect Cox, the Jets' assistant DL coach and a former great LB himself, wasn't the only one to see the potential impact of Michigan's burly inside 'backer. But amid suggestions from reporters that maybe the Jets should move their draft room around the corner to the gents', Tannenbaum was making one point: He'll take advice from all around when it comes to spending the team's draft picks.

And there was another lesson to be learned from that episode that left the Jets flush with success when Harris played so well the second half of last season: The Jets of Tannenbaum and, before him, Terry Bradway will not be stationary targets when it comes to their draft strategy.

While a lot of the talk at today's news event repeated the theme that the Jets, with the sixth overall pick in the first round April 26, will have six players they like when that day arrives, there is always the chance that they will find a dance partner and move up or down.

Bradway, now the director of player personnel, traded up in the first round twice and out of it once in the five drafts when he was GM from 2001-05. He said today that the tradeups for Harris and Revis had something to do with how deep last year's draft was.

"I think there's more depth maybe in this year's draft than there was last year," Bradway said. "Last year we felt like there wasn't as much depth. That's why we traded up, gave up some picks, because we didn't think the value would've been there. This year we think the value's going to be there through three, four rounds."

So does that means the Jets are less willing this year to give up any of this year's picks (the sixth and 36th picks overall, two fours, a six and a seven) to move up? Hardly. But with the NFL mercifully downsizing this year's draft from 15 to 10 minutes for each first-round pick and from 10 to seven minutes per second-rounder, that means more phone calls between teams are likely to be made in the days before the draft rather than hashing out terms of a trade while one team is already on the clock.

"You've got to be prepared for everything," Bradway said. "We'll be prepared to sit at six and take a good player. We'll be prepared to listen to a phone call."

"The activity will heat up in the latter part of next week," Tannenbaum said before repeating a mantra that Jets fans should be used to by now. "We're always looking to improve the team."

Whatever happens, you can be sure Mr. T will have a handle on the situation.

What About D-Rob?

Most of the news conference was devoted to draft questions, but a few topics about the current Jets came up. One question was on the status of DT Dewayne Robertson, mentioned in trade rumors for a few months.

"Dewayne's under contract. He's on our team right now," Tannenbaum said. "I won't comment on speculation, but Dewayne's had a good career with us, so far he's on the roster, and he'll be here unless something changes."