09/28 — Where's the offense? Why, it was right here at the Meadowlands in today's Jets-Arizona slugfest.

There were plenty of coaching points for Eric Mangini to stress to his team this week heading into the bye and next week heading into the home game with the Bengals. As sublime as the Jets' 34-point second quarter was, the Cards' 21-0 third quarter was on the scary side. "I was a part of both of them," Mangini said, "and I can tell you I liked the second quarter a lot better."

But in some ways this was an excellent game plan. The Jets defense hit Kurt Warner early and forced Arizona into a display case full of turnovers. And then when the Cards' very talented offense kicked in, which everyone thought it might, the Jets' offense took over.

"It was special," said RB Leon Washington. "The offense, we've been working hard over the last couple of weeks trying to build that camaraderie and that chemistry."

"Today was a great example of the offense we can be," WR Jerricho Cotchery said. "We felt like the sky was the limit."

As everyone knows, there are three types of lies — regular lies, damned lies and statistics. But it doesn't feel like coincidence that the Jets have increased their production from 10 points vs. New England to 29 on Monday night at San Diego to 56 today.

And those 56 points are the second-most in a game in franchise history, trailing only the 62 hung up on Tampa Bay in 1985. The 34 in the second quarter are the most in any quarter in franchise history, four more than the 30 rung up on the Dolphins in the Monday Night Miracle in 2000.

A major part of the explosion was the hookup between Brett Favre and Laveranues Coles. TD passes of 12, 34 and 2 yards in that magical second quarter, eight passes in all for 105 yards, six for first downs, four for third-down conversions.

"I know there have been some things said about me, like not being happy about Brett coming here," Coles said afterward. "But none of that's true. We've had great conversations from the time he walked through the door. I've done nothing but try to get on the same page with Brett since he's been here and I'm sure he'd say the same thing."

In fact, No. 87 said he's talking a lot with No. 4 post-huddle.

"I'm always in Brett's ear," LC said. "I know he's getting more comfortable with the offense and he's giving me the go-ahead to talk to him when I'm coming out of the huddle to tell him what I have. He's allowing me to say what I think I can win on."

Not only does Coles have Favre's ear, but he jumped into the QB's arms after the second TD, and after the third, he gave the touchdown-reception ball to Favre.

"He deserved it," Coles said. "Our offense has taken a lot of criticism. We haven't been as explosive as people thought we'd be. It was the first time I'd ever had three touchdowns in one game. It meant a lot to me to go back and give the ball to a legend and say thank you for everything you've done for me."

"Not too many times in my career," Favre said, "has someone given me the ball. He said, 'I've already had two today. Here's one for you.' "

It's not good enough to say, well, look who the Jets scored on. The Cards' defense, despite looking like Swiss cheese today, had not been chopped liver this season. Their No. 5 ranking in points allowed after three weeks was the team's highest ranking hadn't been higher since they were fourth after seven weeks of the 2002 season.

Every bit as important than the 34 points in the second quarter, which were a part of one huge snowball on this overcast, rainy day, was the 22-point last quarter. As Mangini said, "That was a little more exciting than it really had to be."

Yet while the "D" was scuffling with trying to slow down the Cards' "10" personnel (one back, no tight ends), the offense had an answer every time so that the visitors only once had the ball down by two touchdowns. And they had it for only one play at their 35 when they turned it over for the seventh time to the offense, which struck for the final score of the day, Favre's fourth-down 24-yarder to rookie TE Dustin Keller.

"They were moving the ball all day," DE Shaun Ellis said. "They were doing a great job. It's good when you can put points up like that."

"We were just looking at the work we put in as an offense," Cotchery said. "The defense had some games where they dominated, the special teams had some games where they dominated. So we wanted to step up as an offense and try to dominate on our end of the bar. I think we did a good job today ... we did a really good job."

Mangini, who has done a lot so far this season to look after his players — from the reduction of training camp practices to two hours to taking his players out of pads for their short week this past week in healing up and preparing for the Cards — now gets this season's early bye to coach the Jets up from their 2-2 mark for the month of October.

And Jets fans know what has happened after the first two bye weeks with Mangini at the helm.

"We've got a chance here," he said, "to really go back and look at the things we've done over the course of the first quarter of the season and make some progress in all three areas."