11/05 — When the Jets got off to a 3-0 start, Bart Scott and his teammates were praised for not only their play but their verbal freewheeling. But now that the Jets have hit a crossroads with losses in four of their past five contests, many have taken the stance that Scott and his mates should tone down the chatter.

Scott doesn’t plan on changing his identity anytime soon.

“That’s who we are. It wasn’t a façade, it wasn’t something fake. When I came here, I said we were going to be violent and ferocious and all those things that people ate up,” he said on a revealing episode of neyworkjets.com’s “Barking with Bart.” “I still feel that way and that’s not going to change for anybody.

“I am who I am. I can’t change. I’ve been like this all my life.”

An emotional and passionate fellow, Scott knows he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he stops talking now, he’ll be labeled a frontrunner who crawls in the hole when his team encounters adversity. Conversely, he’s going get criticized if he chirps because his team has cooled after a hot start.

Love him or hate him, he’ll stay true to who he is. The Jets didn’t send three coaches — Rex Ryan, defensive coordinator Mike Pettine and defensive backs coach Dennis Thurman — to Scott’s Maryland home in February and offer a reported $22 million guaranteed with the expectation that he’d go mute when the going got tough.

“I’m not fake — this isn’t some fake character. I didn’t go home and say let’s create the 'Madbacker' and this is going to be my image and I’m going to be mad and all that, like I’m tough and I’m going to talk trash,” he said.

“No, I’ve been doing this since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

Sarcastic after the Jets dropped a 30-25 loss to Miami on Nov. 1, Scott called practically everyone in the Dolphins organization “great” and said the ‘Fins were Super Bowl contenders and would "probably take it all the way." He caught a lot of heat nationally for those comments made in disgust.

All week preceding that game, Scott and his defensive teammates heard how the Dolphins ran roughshod over them in the clubs’ first meeting and there were doubts how they’d fare without NT Kris Jenkins the second time around.

Then the Jets went out and held Miami to 104 total yards — the fourth-lowest opponent output in franchise history — and notched six sacks — their most in a game since 2007 — and still lost. They saw the fortress break just once, surrendering a 13-play, 67-yard drive in the fourth quarter that resulted in a 5-yard scoring pass from Chad Henne to TE Joey Haynos.

“We gave up that drive. If we don’t give up that touchdown, who knows how the game goes? You always are chasing perfection,” Scott said. “Perfection is something you never really reach.”

Despite the Jets having the NFL’s No. 2-ranked defense as they headed into their bye and having amassed a combined nine sacks in Weeks 7 and 8, Scott said the "D" has to get more takeaways and score some touchdowns of its own. The Green & White have been victim to six return TDs themselves with the defense on the sideline and yet their 16.8 points per game allowed ranked fourth in football through Week 8.

With a 4-4 mark and just 1-3 in the division, the Jets are in need of a second-half run. They have some ground to make up, but they can hang their hat on a defense that will keep them in every game they play.

“To me this division is going to probably come down to us and the Patriots. They can either continue to create distance between us and kind of kick us while we’re down or we can keep fighting and scrapping,” Scott said. “We have to go up there and win a tough game on the road to try to tighten the race. It’s going to be tough for us, but we can ill afford to lose more than two games or it’s pretty much over with. Our backs are against the wall.”

So everyone can forget about this group going quietly away in the night. All too often, people worry more about Bart’s bark than his bite anyway. Take a look at the video and you’ll see an incredibly unselfish teammate who is more than willing to take a block to free up space for a teammate.

And then he’s thrown himself completely into this community, making a charity grant each week, hosting more than 40 first- and second-graders from the Morristown Neighborhood House at a local fun center last week for a Halloween Party, and he’s also got big plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

He is comfortable in his own skin and he still believes in this football team. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

“I still think it’s a quality football team that, if we’re fortunate enough to get into the playoffs, could do some damage," he said, 'and could be a very dangerous football team.”