09/13 — Home sweet home would've been nice, but the start of the Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez eras of Jets football could have found a less picturesque road venue for their debuts than Reliant Stadium, which rises up from the flat surrounding sprawl of southwestern Houston.

It is warm and humid in the area today, but in keeping with the Texans' "50-80" rule, the Reliant roof is closed for temps of higher than 80 degrees. So the air indoors is pleasant as the early-arriving Jets and Texans are warming up. And the sunlight does come in through the windows on both sides of the stadium beneath the roof infrastructure and above the upper level of seats.

The Green & White — who in fact are wearing their green jerseys and white pants for the first regular-season game under head coach Rex Ryan — have announced a starting lineup change due to the absence of DE Shaun Ellis, suspended for this game, and the hamstring pull suffered by DE Mike DeVito.

Marques Douglas, who has been listed as the DT (in effect the right end) all preseason, will swing over to the LDE spot. And Sione Pouha, Kris Jenkins' backup at NT, will move in at Douglas' DT spot. DeVito is in uniform and available.

Vernon Gholston, as was announced during training camp by Ryan, gets the start at OLB for Calvin Pace, suspended for the season's first four games.

The first Jets inactives of the Ryan era are QB Kevin O'Connell, RB Shonn Greene, CBs Drew Coleman and Marquice Cole, LB Ryan Fowler, G Matt Slauson and TE Matt Mulligan. Erik Ainge has been designated the third QB.

Ryan said during the week that Greene's ribs are fine, but the rookie RB was deactivated because of LB Bryan Thomas' ankle. B.T. has been listed as probable all week and should be OK, but Rex and DC Mike Pettine wanted to have an extra LB available just in case.

Also, if you're scoring at home, note that TE Ben Hartsock has flipped his uniform number, going from No. 48 in the preseason(even though he didn't play in a preseason game) to No. 84 today.

The Texans' inactives are S Eugene Wilson, CB Jacques Reeves, centers Antoine Caldwell and Chris White, DT DelJuan Robinson, WR Kevin Walter and TE Anthony Hill. Dan Orlovsky is the third QB.

Kellen Clemens and Jets fans no doubt don't mind that Wilson, the Texans' starting free safety, is deactivated. All will remember Wilson's 5-yard interception-return TD off Clemens for the Patriots 5:27 into the 2007 game at Gillette Stadium.

Starting in Wilson's place is Nick Ferguson, the former Jet who went on to a starting gig at Denver before coming to the Lone Star State. And starting for Walter is André Davis.

The referee is Ed Hochuli, officiating his 13th Jets game. Those games include the 1998 AFC Championship Game at Denver and the 2004 AFC Wild Card Game at San Diego. The last Jets game Hochuli presided over was the loss at San Francisco in Week 14 last season.

As we've done through the preseason, I'll be signing off from the Radar for now, but I'll return with the game story right at the end of today's season opener. Eric Allen will conduct our game-long CoveritLive chat and I'll be adding tweets throughout the game on the chat and on the Jets' Twitter page. Afterward, EA will file a postgame blog and Kyle Richardson will file a game feature Monday morning.

We're less than an hour away from the opening kickoff in the Jets' season opener against the only NFL team against which they are undefeated — they're 3-0 vs. the Texans, including home wins by 29-7 in 2004 and 26-11 in '06 and a 19-14 come-from-behind victory in their only previous visit to Reliant in 2003.

Enjoy the Jets' season opener.