06/04 — You can call it "the Little Heat," perhaps. You know, the Little Heat before the Big Heat of training camp.

The Jets' Little Heat of off-season minicamps and OTAs (all together now: Organized Team Activities) comes to a close with their full-squad minicamp running from Thursday morning through Saturday.

All the players are expected to be on hand — tight end Chris Baker on Thursday because this camp, unlike the OTAs, is mandatory, not voluntary, and rookie linebacker Vernon Gholston on Friday, the first day he is allowed, by NFL-NCAA rules, to report ahead of Ohio State's weekend commencement ceremonies.

And once they break Saturday, we expect to see very view of the players until the opening of Eric Mangini's third training camp as the Jets' head coach in late July. Oh, some will continue to show up around Weeb Ewbank Hall from time to time, to work out or what not. But even in the 24/7/365 NFL, there is the early summer break between the Little Heat and the Big Heat.

So the process of another off-season — 40 sessions per man in coach Sal Alosi's off-season strength and conditioning program, the rookie minicamp following the draft, 15 OTA sessions and the veterans' mini — is almost done. And kicker Mike Nugent reminded us all on Tuesday before the start of the Jets' Charity Golf Classic.

Nuge is never one to make excuses. But he was asked by my good friend Erik Boland, Newsday's new and improved Jets beat writer (sorry, T-Rock, you're under the bus) if those two days last week when he missed something like six of 11 field goal tries during practice were in any way a concern.

Nugent chuckled politely.

"That's the funny thing," he said. "Somebody mentioned to me the other day that the one or two days you guys have been out there were easily not my 'on' days."

"We guys" being two of the reporters who had the media availability to watch those particular practices.

"We're incorporating different things," he said. "There's going to be stuff going on that we'd like to work on. Not so much me personally changing my form or anything, but just trying to get everyone as much experience as possible. The coaches have done a good job of that, so that once we got to training camp, things kind of really fall into place and it's not everyone's first time."

Nugent has been working with a changing lineup on his FG team, including different snappers and holders, and at the NFL level, at any level, that's an important factor for a kicker.

And as we all know, Nugent's not the only one dealing with change. Each of the QBs gets a different cast and crew from time to time. Players are moved in and out of the O-line, the WR group, the D-line, the LB corps, the secondary. Every NFL coach does it, and from my experience, Mangini believes in versatility more than most.

So everyone's going to have his ups and downs during OTAs. And that fact gets amplified when reporters have been permitted by team and league rules to see only four OTA practices.

That's something all Jets fans who read practice reports these days should remember to keep from hyperventilating. All a reporter, including yours truly, can provide during this time is a snapshot of what's happening at practice. Bad reporters then run with a particular snapshot, making it out to be something it may not be, a trend that may not exist, and predicting things based on this snapshot that may or may not pan out.

Just keep in the back of your mind that when you hear about a player excelling or struggling at this time of year that no one's wearing pads, that the media members haven't seen three-quarters of the OTAs, and that there are some 27 training camp practices and four preseason games for off-season impressions to change.

And with that, get ready for the final snapshots of the Little Heat on Thursday and Friday. There will be a morning and afternoon practice each day, with Mangini's news conference live on newyorkjets.com beginning around 1:15 p.m. both days. After that, the temperature will quietly inch ever upward toward late July.