The New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs conclude their regular seasons this afternoon at the Meadowlands. A year after earning wild-card entry into the postseason, both clubs begin their off-seasons Monday.

“This is one game in a 16-game season that you evaluate in the context of all the others,” said Jets head coach Eric Mangini. “What we're looking for is the preparation and the execution on Sunday as opposed to using this as a bigger springboard to anything else.”

Former Jets head coach Herman Edwards, who guided the Green & White from 2001-05, will patrol the visiting sideline today. The Chiefs (4-11) and the Jets (3-12) have combined for just seven wins and Kansas City is on an eight-game slide, so Edwards' enthusiasm about the visit has been muted.

“I don’t know about excited, but it’s the last stop of our season and it’s been a tough one,” Edwards said. “We’re looking forward to going in there and playing and trying to win a football game.”

The Jets still have 20 players who played under Edwards.

“It will be fun. A lot of players feel close to him,” said WR Justin McCareins, who was acquired by New York’s AFC representative after a March 2004 trade with Tennessee. “He has done a lot for this team. It will be good to have him back and see what his team can do.”

You figure this one will be a low-scoring affair. The Jets have totaled just nine offensive points the past two weeks while the Chiefs have averaged 14.4 points per outing.

And the Chiefs have struggled to run the football. They're last in the NFL, averaging less than 80 yards a game on the ground, and Larry Johnson, recently placed on IR with a foot injury, played in only eight games.

“We’ve become one-handed, putting a lot of pressure on the quarterback, whoever he was,” Edwards said. “We haven’t had the ability to score points.”

The Chiefs are expected to start Brodie Croyle, but the second-year passer from Alabama has a right hand injury. If he can’t go, 34-year-old Damon Huard will start for the 11th time in ’07 and face a Jets defense that's been a post-bye revelation.

“I want to play. There’s nobody on this team that enjoys competing more than I do,” Croyle said. “If there’s any chance I can play, I’m going to play.”

The Jets could get QB Kellen Clemens back for an eighth career start. Clemens, who injured his rib against the Patriots, backed up Chad Pennington last week in Nashville.

“I love playing, so whether we're 3-11 or 3-12 or 12-3, it doesn't matter if I played a half-year, the whole year or none,” Clemens said during the week. “I love to play and I'm going to do everything I can to get healthy enough to play again this Sunday.”

Whoever takes snaps this week will need good protection. The Titans sacked Pennington six times as the Green & White used various line combinations, including looks with Will Montgomery and Robert Turner at LG and Clint Oldenburg at RT.

The Chiefs have a fine set of edge rushers in Jared Allen, who is among the NFL sack leaders with 13.5, and Tamba Hali. LT D’Brickashaw Ferguson will once against be in the spotlight, matching up with Allen.

“It's a similar situation to last week, where Allen can ruin the game at any point, and then you've got Hali on the other side with 6½ sacks,” Mangini said. “I think both those guys can produce a lot of pass rush in a lot of different ways and are not really just limited by one pass rush move or one style.”

If the Jets’ signalcallers have time to throw, they’ll have No. 89 in their sights. Jerricho Cotchery, has a team-leading 74 receptions and 1,054 yards receiving despite missing one game.

“You want to be proud of accomplishing a goal you set before the season and taking your game to another level," Cotchery said, "but in contrast to that you want the team to be having a successful year."

Another way of slowing down the Chiefs’ pass rush would be getting Thomas Jones going early. Can Jones, who has 1,021 yards rushing in his first season with the Jets, find daylight against a unit allowing 4.3 yards per carry?

The winner today will close the season on a high note while the loser will pick earlier in April’s NFL Draft.

In just a few days, both teams will enter important off-seasons. They’ll dust themselves off and attempt to return to elite status in ’08.

““We’ve got a long hill to climb. We’ve got to climb a big mountain,” Edwards said. “That’s the fun of it for me because it’s a challenge. You know where you’re at and there is a big hill you have to climb, but the ride down the hill is all fun.”