11/29 — No. 57 is on the Jets' active roster again and he's starting to flash on the field as well.

"It's been nice just to come back out here and play again with all these guys," Jason Trusnik said this week, "just step in and do whatever role they ask of me, whether that's a role on special teams, defense, wherever it is, just trying to help out and do my part."

Trusnik had been biding his time, keeping up with the book learning, while he worked his way back from an injury that had him on the Jets' Physically Unable to Perform list all summer and for the first eight weeks of the regular season.

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But head coach Eric Mangini returned Trusnik to practice through his PUP window on Oct. 29 and that Sunday the former free agent from Ohio Northern made his first contribution of the season in his first game back at Buffalo, getting great penetration and being hooked by Bryan Scott on Brian Moorman's fake-punt first-down run at the start of the second half.

"We kind of knew they had that in their package," Trusnik said. "Fortunately for us they held me."

The rousing 26-17 road win over the Bills was built on a number of big little plays such as the one Trusnik contributed that day.

That's where most of his work has been since returning, on punt cover and return and kickoff cover and return. He and his fellow cover men did a good job on Tennessee's return unit. Coach Jeff Fisher, having had to move Chris Carr from primary returner to starting corner, installed speedy rookie Lavelle Hawkins behind the Titans' blockers. The Jets bottled Hawkins up for an 18.6-yard average on seven returns.

"A lot of the young guys that we have playing now were a big reason for that," Mangini said. "Trusnik, Marques Murrell and James Ihedigbo, those guys have been able to come in, carve out a role and now are expanding that role and being productive for us."

Another of those roles is, like a few other Jets linebackers such as David Bowens and Cody Spencer, making the switch from outside 'backer to more work on the inside. Trusnik saw action in the Jets' base defense for Eric Barton at Tennessee for his first play in the NFL as an ILB.

"It was something they just asked me to learn and do," he said. "I kind of had some time there where I was able to learn the middle. The more versatile I can be, it gives the coaches more options they can do with me. I'm just trying to take it all in."

Getting Even with the Odds

Such is the NFL. Last year we were calculating the track record of teams making the playoffs after 1-3, 1-4 and 1-5 starts. A little over a year later what are the odds of teams not making the postseason after 8-3 starts?

Not good. Which is good for the Green & White.

From 1990, the season the NFL went to six playoff teams per conference, through last season, 52 teams started 8-3, same as the Jets, Steelers and Panthers have this year. Only three missed out on the playoffs, all in the mid-Nineties. Here are the three:

The record is even stronger beginning in 2002, when the divisions were realigned and the playoff berths went to four division winners and two wild cards. Seventeen teams have started 8-3 since then, all finished either first or second in their divisions and all gained postseason berths.

That list includes the 2004 Jets, who started 8-3, finished 10-6 and won at San Diego and nearly at Pittsburgh before going home.

While these odds sound pretty good, similar numbers probably sounded good to the above-mentioned Raiders, Chiefs and Redskins teams. Sunday against the dangerous Broncos is no time for the Jets to ease up on the gas — especially since gas in the neighborhoods surrounding their practice facility and the Meadowlands is now coming in at less than $1.60 a gallon.