Jets' offense hopes to gain ground against Redskins

Their Super Bowl aspirations aren't hinging on what happens tonight. But when the Jets meet the Donovan McNabb-less Redskins in their penultimate preseason game - their dress rehearsal for the Sept. 13 season opener against Baltimore - there's a part of them that wants to make amends for last week's uninspiring offensive performance against Carolina.

Because the starters will play into the third quarter, the game will serve as the perfect opportunity to fine-tune a few things. The regulars won't play much next week against the Eagles, so now's the time to improve.

"This is important," Mark Sanchez said. "This is as close to a real game as we get. We know we are playing well into the second half. We get a chance to watch a little more film and make it more like a game plan . . . We want to put all of our stuff on film, make it look good and feel good about it going into the regular season."

There wasn't much to feel good about against Carolina. The Jets' first-team offense had 33 total net yards - 20 on one LaDainian Tomlinson run - and three first downs in three series.

Overall, the Jets managed 45 first-half yards, drawing the ire of Rex Ryan and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.

"From a leadership standpoint, we've got to be better than that," Tony Richardson said. "Rex puts a lot of trust and faith in our offense and obviously Schotty puts a lot of trust and faith in the players. And whenever we don't perform well, I take that personally . . . We've got to go out and execute and do what we do."

Said Jerricho Cotchery: "We have to establish some kind of rhythm in order to keep the chains moving and put points on the board. You can't do that if you're not playing with great tempo and we don't have a rhythm."

The first-string offense will be sporting baseball caps by the time Laveranues Coles checks in, so the unit will have a front-row seat as the 32-year-old receiver attempts to show his old team that he still has it - even if it'll likely be against third-stringers.

A Jet from 2000-02, Coles spent 2003-04 with the Redskins after signing a seven-year, $35-million deal that included a $13-million signing bonus.

"I'm very thankful to [Redskins owner] Daniel Snyder for building my home down in Jacksonville, Florida," Coles said, drawing laughs. "He gave me an opportunity when, again, other people wouldn't. I went in, I gave them 110 percent of what I had. I've always been that way everywhere I went, and that's where it stops."

Coles - who returned to the Jets for the 2005-08 seasons before playing for the Bengals last year - added: "This is where it all started for me. I'm back here. These are the people that gave me a chance again and I'm thankful for that."

Coles is so grateful to Snyder that he joked that he needs to find a way to immortalize the billionaire near his Northern Florida estate. "I really probably should put something outside," Coles said. "Probably a statue of him when you turn on my street or something with a picture of him in his $80,000 suit and those $50,000 boots he wears."