08/29 — Jesse Chatman walked like me, you know, with several aches and pains in the lower extremities. And when I asked him in the Jets' locker room in the bowels of Lincoln Financial Field earlier in the night if he was tired, he didn't hesitate.

"Yes, definitely," he said.

But the Jets' little big man flashed his trademark smile when he was reminded that he had 180 yards from scrimmage — "I didn't realize I had that many yards, no I didn't, till Coach told me" — and really lit up when he was asked if scoring the winning touchdown in the Jets' 27-20 win over the Eagles on Thursday night floated his boat.

"Yeah, yeah, that felt good," he said wearily but happily. "It's the hard work you put in during the off-season, and now it's preseason time and it's live action. And every running back wants to get in the end zone."

Well, it was the preseason. But as every NFL fan knows intimately, that fourth preseason game is not must-see TV or a gotta-get-down-the-NJT-to-the-Linc summer game. The Jets and Eagles starters rested all game and the "twos" and "threes" battled it out all night.

And in the Jets' case at RB, with Thomas Jones, Leon Washington and FB Tony Richardson resting up for the Sept. 7 opener at Miami and no one left on the depth chart except rookie free agent Jehuu Caulcrick, that meant this was going to be one for the Chat-rooms.

Head coach Eric Mangini explained it simply: "Jesse was one of the few running backs we had on the roster. I thought we were running the ball pretty well there in the second half, so we stayed with that."

It got so repetitive that the pressbox announcer said "22 carries again" as if he heard that one a few times before.

On the night Chatman finished with 93 yards and his 2-yard TD on 29 carries plus 87 yards on six reception. The 180 yards and 35 touches were both personal bests, and Chatman's yards from scrimmage was the 10th-most by any Jet in any game in the last 15 seasons. Here is that top 10:

What does it all mean? Well, clearly, for any player to reach 180 YFS in the preseason, the conditions have to be just right, as they were for Chatman. But let's remember that No. 22 once rushed for 2,000 yards in a season for Eastern Washington. If there was any doubt that he can carry part of the feature-back load behind Jones this season, he answered running behind the Jets' second and third blockers against the Eagles' second and third defenses.

There are many Jets on the bubble today and Saturday as Mangini and the Jets coaches figure out the 22 players they have to move to get to Sunday's 53-player roster limit.

But the only bubbles Chatman should be feeling in the next few days are those from the hot and cold tubs as he tries to get his body ready to rock 'n' roll if he's needed against the Miami Dolphins, which, lest we forget in all the Chad Pennington hoopla that's about to hit us all next week, was Chatman's team last season.

"You can't help but be motivated," said Chatman, "against your old team."