12/12 — Is it Clowney time? Many of you (or is it only a few of you asking many times?) have been eager to hear word about the possibility of seeing WR David Clowney make his pro debut for the Jets.

I mentioned the interest to David the other day and he laughed. "That's cool," he said. "I appreciate that."

There are no guarantees that Sunday is the day for Clowney's unveiling. As head coach Eric Mangini said at today's news conference to an inquiring reporter seeking info on who might be active or inactive for the Buffalo game, "We'll announce our inactives Sunday."

But with Brad Smith, a key offensive and special teams contributor, suffering a concussion last week at San Francisco and being held out of practice the past two days, there is a chance Clowney could be an active NFL player for the first time in his career.

"If it happens," he said, "I've got to make sure I'm ready."

I asked him if it's been difficult biding his time this year — he's been on the 53-man roster all season but inactive all 13 games, at first because of a shoulder injury that cut short his flying start in the preseason opener at Cleveland.

"Yeah, it's tough," he said. "But at the same time, we've been winning. I've been doing everything I can. I've been working hard on show team. Whatever I can do to get on the field, whatever responsibilities I can do, whatever positions I can play to help my team win, I'm going to do it."

And keep in mind that the 188-pound speedster is playing special teams in practice.

"I'm on all of them other than the field goal team. I can participate in any of those."

The issue for Mangini and teams coaches Mike Westhoff and Kevin O'Dea has never been that the teams roles they had open were for the bigger bodies of guys such as Marques Murrell (250 pounds) and James Ihedigbo (202) have filled specific ST needs.

And there's not much in-game work for a fifth WR — ask Wallace Wright about that. He's gotten only a handful of offensive reps and had no passes thrown to him while playing behind Jerricho Cotchery, Laveranues Coles, Chansi Stuckey and Brad Smith.

But today Mangini called Clowney "an excellent candidate" to play soon, and on Wednesday the coach spoke optimistically about what No. 17 has been contributing.

"He's been very consistent with the show-team things that we asked him to do. He’s always pressuring the defense in the way that he practices," Mangini said. "We’ve been looking for a way to get him up for quite some time now. It just hasn't worked out with the special teams roles that he plays.

"I have no problem with David being on the 45 and playing. I anticipate that he'd be able to contribute."