JET NOTES Bill Parcells yesterday revealed for the first time that it was possible Aaron Glenn might not start Sunday against Jacksonville in the Jets’ first playoff game since 1991.
Glenn, who missed the last three regular-season games with a severely sprained right ankle, has been practicing this week, but Parcells has left open the possibility of Ray Mickens starting in his place if Glenn is not 100 percent.
“I don’t know that he’s going to start,” Parcells said of Glenn, who would be in charge of covering the Jaguars’ Pro Bowl WR Jimmy Smith (78 catches, eight TDs). “I’m not sure about that. I told him, ‘I don’t want anyone playing this game that’s got a built-in excuse. If you don’t think you’re 100 percent, don’t go out there. He told me, ‘I’m doing pretty well.'”
Glenn, who said, “I’m going to tell [Parcells] the truth about how I’m feeling,” wasn’t sure how the ankle would be on Sunday.
“Right now, I don’t know,” he said yesterday. “I can move OK. I have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get myself ready, and if I’m ready I’ll be out there. The atmosphere and the adrenaline of what’s going on can tend to make people say, ‘Well, I’m ready,’ when you’re really not ready.”
Mickens, who craves being a full-time starter, would welcome the chance to start a fourth game in a row.
“I know that these games are more important, so I want to step up in these games to prove myself,” Mickens said. “This is a good game to make plays in to prove to everyone that I want to win. This is a good game to make some big plays. This is a golden opportunity, a playoff game.”
On a personal level, Mickens, a restricted free agent at the end of the season, is looking at this as an audition, because the taste of starting in place of Glenn has more than whetted his appetite.
“The thing about starting is once you start you really don’t want to go back,” Mickens said. “You don’t want to go backwards in your profession no matter what you do. There are some things that you have to live with and bite your tongue about. I just don’t want to be six or seven years into my professional career to get a chance.” *With Jets defensive boss Bill Belichick’s name floating as a rumored replacement for several head coaching vacancies, including Chicago and Philadelphia, Parcells yesterday said that no teams have asked the Jets for permission to speak to him when the season is over.
“What I do know is this: There is a policy in place in the league that requires people asking for permission to talk to the coach, to file it to the league office and transmit it to the team,” Parcells said. “They’re able to do that for a head coaching position any time. And I have yet to receive any communication on that at this time.”
Asked if he believes Belichick is “ready” to assume another head coaching position, Parcells said, “I don’t really want to discuss that. I don’t pay too much attention to the rumors, because I know the league requirements and I’m going to be the first to know.”
Parcells added that, should an offer arise, “We would sit down and talk about it and work it out. Bill and I have a relationship that’s existed for a long time. He’s done a great job for me over the years and I’d like to think I’ve helped him, too.
“We’ll sit down and talk about things when the time comes. I don’t know what I would do, and I don’t know how I’d react.”
Belichick, under his current contract, has it in writing that he’s Parcells’ replacement with the Jets when Parcells steps aside. So it’ll take a rather lucrative deal and enticing situation to lure him away from the Jets.