Jets' No. 1 pro? Their confidence

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. - Bart Scott has always been Bart Scott. That is to say he's always been confident and outspoken, the kind of person you'd love to have on your side but hate to go against.

It was instilled in him by his mother, he said. As far back as he can remember, she always called him "Great Scott." It didn't take long for him to think of himself in that way.

"I've always believed in me," he said, "even when other people didn't."

In other words, he's always been a Jet.

If there's one thing that separates this Jets team from the 31 others in the NFL, it's not their confidence. It's their willingness to discuss their confidence. They said they would knock off the Colts in the divisional round of the playoffs, and they did. They made no pretenses about wanting to beat up the Patriots last week, and they did that, too.

They may not be throwing verbal water balloons that splatter all over the Steelers' locker room this week, but the Jets believe they are going to win Sunday's AFC Championship Game, too.

Obviously, winning breeds confidence, and the Jets have done plenty of that in the last two years. They've won 24 of their 37 games under Rex Ryan.

But while many think that it's Ryan who fosters the air of confidence on this Jets team, the players and coaches believe that confidence is not something that can be coached or learned. It has to be inside of you. It has to always be there. It can't be faked; there's no con in confidence.

You have to have always been a Jet to fit in with these Jets.

"A lot of people just have it, I think," tight end Dustin Keller said of the roots of the Jets' confidence. "I was always confident in my abilities, and no matter what was going on, I felt like I had the ability to do whatever it was."

Just to prove the point, several Jets noted that they were a confident bunch even before Ryan arrived here and opened his first news conference with the Jets by talking about winning a Super Bowl.

"I don't think it changed any with Eric [Mangini] being here or Rex being here," center Nick Mangold said. "I just think that as you go along, the more times you do stuff and see stuff, the more confidence you're going to have."

"We've been confident since Day 1," veteran defensive end Shaun Ellis said. "Even the previous teams, we were always confident under Mangini and Herm [Edwards] and all that. We just didn't put it in the media."

They sure do now.

"Rex, he's like 'Put it out there,' " Ellis said. "He's going to tell the world. That's why a lot of people, I guess they look at us like we're cocky and bold and all that. But us, we just don't worry about it. We know our coach puts it out there and he has a lot of belief in us, and we go out there and back him up and prove it."

Are the Jets a cocky team?

"I'm not going to say cocky," Ellis answered. "I think we believe in what we do, and that's what makes us so bold."

That belief was implanted long ago, on faraway fields and sandlots. Ryan may allow the players to give a voice to their confidence, but it already has been molded inside of them.

Ryan pointed to Mark Sanchez as an example. The second-year quarterback has become one of the NFL's best crunch-time QBs, having led five fourth-quarter comebacks and won four road playoff games.

"I think whether it's clutch or whether it's confidence and everything else, he has it," Ryan said. "I think that's a hard skill to develop. I think you either have it or you don't. As a little kid, he probably had it."

Now, on the brink of a Super Bowl, the entire team has it. That feeling that things are going to go well for them, that they are in control. Ryan might have had to bring it out of some players during the season, but at this point, the confidence is on cruise control.

"Right now with this group, that's not an issue for us," Ryan said. "We are a confident team; we've been confident the whole year. There's no reason not to be confident."