ESPN is giving the Green & White grudging respect as a team on the rise.

On Monday, John Clayton from ESPN.com (I sometimes like to call him John The Clayton from ESPN The Magazine) pegs the Jets as one of his Five Surprise Teams to Watch in 2008.

Clayton slots the Jets at No. 5, right behind the Bills, saying the Jets "are operating like a team trying to make a big move" and stating that if the… More

The air was a little brisk, in the upper 50s perhaps, for this morning's third practice of the Jets' weekend rookie minicamp, leading to this exchange between defensive coaches:

Bryan Cox: "Bob, you look cold."

Bob Sutton: "It's linemen's weather."

It was also special teams weather, at least for much of the 40 minutes of media availability. And while the Jets' 50 draft picks, undrafted free age… More

It's the most wonderful time of the year ... well, if you're a football coach, it's at least one of them.

Here's how poetically head coach Eric Mangini waxed at his afternoon news conference about the Jets rookie minicamp that opened with two practices today:

"All the hard work we put in as an organization into the draft, so many people working on it throughout the whole off-season — really thro… More

Just to let you know we haven't forgotten that we have a rookie minicamp upon us, I can report to you that the rookies — six draft choices headed by first-rounders Vernon Gholston and Dustin Keller, 10 undrafted free agents and an unspecified number of tryouts — have been filtering into Weeb Ewbank Hall during the day today. The newest members of the Green & White have a team meeting with head coa… More

You can't tell your newest Jets without a scorecard, but here are the number assignments for the team's six draft picks heading into this weekend's rookie minicamp. A somewhat interesting note: None of the six has received the same number he wore last season in college.

Some of these uniform numbers may change either for training camp or, for those who make it, for the start of the regular seas… More