Jets-Pats rivalry transcends games

Their history involves stealing players, reneging on contracts, tattling to the commissioner, suing their bosses and then playing some football. All of it happens in the sports crucible that is Boston-New York contempt.

Now that's a rivalry.

The New England Patriots and New York Jets have established their series as the NFL's most intense.

They'll meet Sunday at the Meadowlands in a game that could symbolize a shift in the AFC East. The Patriots don't have star quarterback Tom Brady anymore and are considered the underdogs. The Jets have another first-ballot Hall of Famer in Brett Favre.

"The New England Patriots are the standard bearers in the AFC East," said former Patriots and Jets running back Keith Byars. "But the Jets smell a little blood in the water."

Sunday's matchup is compelling, but it's merely another episode in a series that has been nothing short of fascinating for a generation.

Head coaches Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini, sharing professional lineage and mutual disdain, have worked for both teams and accused each other of various transgressions (see the Spygate chapter in your Rivalry Handbook). Several assistants and 51 players have jumped back and forth since Bill Parcells became Patriots coach in 1993 and Jets coach in 1997.

"When Joe Walton was coaching the Jets, we weren't taking Jets-Patriots calls," said legendary New York sports talker Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. "It wasn't Boston versus New York like Red Sox-Yankees, but when Parcells got in the mix, that's when the Jets-Patriots rivalry began in earnestness and spiraled out of control.

"It's all off-the-field stuff. It transcends the actual games."

While Byars contended the rivalry is fueled more by franchise or coaching animosity, Curtis Martin, who also ran for both teams, said "it was more like competing against your brother. When you're competing against people that you know, it just brings a little extra out of you."

Going into a Patriots-Jets game, the players are fully aware of the added importance. They're well-versed on the story lines. They look across the field and see so many familiar faces. They feel the added hostility swirling around the stadium like a nasty wind.

"It almost feels combustible," said Martin, who bolted the Patriots for the Jets to reunite with Parcells. "You almost expect fans to get into a fight in the stands. There's that type of tension.

"You know the history. You know where both coaches come from. You know what's going on. You don't necessarily feed into the media, but you understand and you're not oblivious to it."

The Patriots-Jets blood feud has been rehashed often enough, but here's the CliffsNotes version:

* After 30-plus years of coexisting in relative harmony as AFL brothers, the Patriots hire lightning rod and former New York Giants head coach Parcells in 1993.

* Parcells, upset over being overruled by Patriots owner Robert Kraft in the 1996 draft, defects to the Jets at the end of the season. Kraft demands draft compensation. The NFL orders the Jets to surrender four picks over the next three years.

* Parcells signs Martin to a six-year, $36 million offer sheet in 1998, knowing the Patriots can't match. The Jets give up first- and third-round picks as compensation.
* Parcells leaves the Jets sideline after 1999 and abdicates to Belichick. On his way to the podium for his introductory news conference, Belichick scrawls a resignation note on a napkin.

* The Jets forbid Belichick from pursuing other jobs. Belichick responds by filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.

* Belichick becomes Patriots head coach in 2000 and goes on to win six AFC East titles, four AFC titles and three Super Bowls.

* In September 2001, Jets LB Mo Lewis delivers the sideline hit that changed the Patriots franchise. Drew Bledsoe suffers internal bleeding, and virtual unknown Brady takes over.

* Patriots defensive coordinator Mangini leaves to become Jets head coach in 2006. He tries to pick up his things the next day, but he's locked out of Gillette Stadium.

* Patriots file tampering charges against the Jets regarding WR Deion Branch.

* The Jets report Patriots videotaping violations to the NFL last year, and Spygate becomes an obsession well into the offseason.

The Patriots-Jets series, however, is more than good theater. These games have counted.

The Patriots have won six of the past seven AFC East titles. The Jets won the other one in 2002 in a three-way tiebreaker with the Patriots and Miami Dolphins.

They met in the playoffs two seasons ago. That year, they split in the regular season (the road teams won each time), and the Patriots beat the Jets 37-16 in the playoffs.

"It's always serious," Martin said. "One significance to this is that it seems the winner of these games usually wins the division. It's really taken serious. There's a lot at stake with these games."

The Tuna speaks out about Jason Taylor

Bill Parcells is speaking out, and wants it known that Jason Taylor has a place with the Miami Dolphins.


Bill Parcells says "of course" he wants Jason Taylor to return to the Dolphins this season.
The Dolphins' football operations czar, in one of his first interviews since joining the franchise in December, said Thursday "of course" he wants the six-time Pro Bowl defensive end to be on the field with Miami this fall.


"Why wouldn't you want one of the very best players?" Parcells said in an interview with The Associated Press during an appearance at a Gatorade promotional event.



Parcells also downplayed widespread reports of a rift with Taylor, calling it "a fabrication."



Earlier this week, Taylor said he wants to play one more season, and has told the Dolphins he would agree to a trade if they wish.



For weeks, Bill Parcells has been hearing plenty about his feud with Jason Taylor.


Parcells says it doesn't exist.


Finally ending his silence about the much-ballyhooed topic, the Miami Dolphins' football operations czar not only said Thursday that he wants the six-time Pro Bowl defensive end on his team this fall, but also tried to eliminate the perception that he deliberately snubbed Taylor during a chance encounter at the team's headquarters earlier this spring.



Bill Parcells says "of course" he wants Jason Taylor to return to the Dolphins this season.

"Why wouldn't you want one of the very best players?" Parcells said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This thing has kind of taken on a life of its own and a large measure of this 'rift' is fabrication. I don't really know what the genesis was, other than there was some talk about a trade and people naturally thinking that when I come in it's going to be confrontational. And that's not necessarily true."

This was clear: Barring a change of plans, Parcells wants No. 99 on the field for Miami in 2008.

"Of course I want him here," Parcells said.

Earlier this week, Taylor said he wants to play one more season, and has told the Dolphins he would agree to a trade if they wish.



"Nobody's ever off the market. ... I'm not trying to be flippant, but I would say, yeah [he's off the market],'' Parcells told reporters, according to the Palm Beach Post. "For me to say that we are looking to do something, that'd be wrong."

Parcells looked tanned and relaxed, wearing a black shirt and gray slacks at a promotional appearance for Gatorade Tiger, the sports drink endorsed by world No. 1 golfer Tiger Woods. Seated on a tan leather couch, not far from where people were in a long-drive contest inside a lunar simulator and sipping free bottles of the drink, Parcells couldn't have seemed more at ease during a 30-minute interview in which he seemed absolutely genuine.

When the conversation turned to Taylor, Parcells didn't hesitate to share his side the story.

Parcells had been silent -- publicly, anyway -- since Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga hired him in December to run the team's football side. While evading the public eye, Parcells rebuilt the coaching staff, helped make roster decisions and looked at piles of film, all in an effort to change Miami's fortunes. The Dolphins were an NFL-worst 1-15 last season and haven't made the playoffs in six years.

But Parcells' relationship with Taylor, one incident in particular, has been dominant more than any aspect of his tenure so far.

Earlier this spring, when Taylor stopped by the Dolphins' facility during a quick trip back to South Florida from his work on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," Parcells reportedly ignored the 2006 NFL defensive player of the year when he popped into the same room as Parcells and new Dolphins coach Tony Sparano.

As the story went, Taylor said something to Parcells, and Parcells silently turned away.

Parcells remembers it a bit differently.

"See, that's not true," Parcells said. "It's not true. It's my understanding -- OK, and I could be misinterpreting, but I don't think I am -- that he came to meet with coach Sparano. There were 25 or 30 people in this room, we were doing film, and apparently, he may have stuck his hand in the door and maybe I wasn't paying attention. I wear hearing aids. That particular day, I didn't have them with me. I'm not trying to make an excuse, but there was no intentional, calculated, disrespectful thing that I personally did. I know that for a fact."

The saga took another turn last month when Sparano said Taylor would not be with the team for its offseason program or training camp -- sparking speculation that Taylor demanded a trade from Miami a story that Taylor himself tried to snuff out during a quickly arranged news conference on Sunday.

Taylor did acknowledge what has been believed for weeks, that he told the Dolphins he would be open to a trade if the team could find a deal that they believed gave them fair value.

He also said he told the team he intends to play one more season, yet stopped short of saying he absolutely would retire before the 2009 campaign. And he isn't expected at minicamp this weekend, something that Parcells said Sparano will handle however he prefers.

"I want to win in '08. That's what I want to do," Taylor said Sunday. "And I've told the Dolphins from Day 1 that was my intention. My intentions right now are to play one more year. I've tried to give the Dolphins the opportunity, if they wanted to do something and move me, then I was OK with that. If they can get value for me, then do that. That was the conversation we had behind closed doors a long time ago."

Sparano seemed to soften his stance on Taylor earlier this week, after the two held a private meeting to clear the air.

Still, it's hardly a certainty that Taylor takes part in Parcells' first South Florida training camp when it opens next month.

"There's really nothing new to report," Parcells said.

At 66 years old, Parcells -- who, yes, has a fiery side, although he stresses that he doesn't bring it out very often -- says he simply cannot be bothered by what people say anymore.

He insists Sparano and general manager Jeff Ireland aren't his puppets and that they are intimately involved in virtually all decisions related to the roster. He didn't react to Terrell Owens' comments to Bloomberg Radio earlier this week that Parcells is "kind of out of touch with a lot of today's athletes and things that are going on."

And he says most of the Taylor-related stories -- while contending they aren't entirely factual -- didn't bother him, either.

"I've learned that the more you stir it, the worse it stinks," Parcells said. "I've learned to kind of bite my tongue. But I can tell you, from my point of view, he's a good player and we'd like to have him on the team."