12/13 — The sleet started to click off my second-floor window here at the Weeb around 10 this morning. Soon the wet snow started to float down. You could see some fat flakes on the heads of players who would go outside and then come back into the locker room.

One player was hopeful the Jets' practice would be moved into the practice bubble. But that was so Miami week. As an equipment man told him: "It's going to be like this on Sunday. Where do you think we're going to be today?"

Indeed, the Jets practiced out on their upper grass field in the frozen slush that had accumulated on the grounds like an exploded lemon Squishee. Most players dressed for the occasion — although RB Thomas Jones was noteworthy as he was wearing shorts in the 30-degree weather.

And most players seem to have made their peace with the prospect of playing in similar if not worse conditions at New England on Sunday. The forecast on weather.com at 1:30 p.m. today calls for the addition of heavy rain to the snow, wind and 38-degree temps that are expected to visit Foxboro, Mass., for the game against the Patriots.

"Ever since you were a little kid, the best games were playing in the snow," said DT Sione Pouha, who got his share of snow growing up in Utah. "It's a part of the game. It's one of the elements you have to deal with. There's plenty of them around the NFL. You've got sunny, you've got hot, you've got humid."

"It's part of the joy of playing this game," center Nick Mangold concurred, "because you get to play in the elements. You go out there and you have fun with it."

"The more you play in it," said TE Sean Ryan, who endured the 72 inches of snow in 72 hours in his Buffalo hometown not too long ago, "the more you get used to it."

That, of course, is head coach Eric Mangini's element-ary thinking. He recalled last season and the week of practice leading up to the muddy Game 9 victory at Gillette Stadium.

"I was pleased that we had worked in the elements as much as we had," Mangini said. "It had rained pretty hard that week leading up to the game and we had worked through that so the players felt comfortable working in that environment: Throwing the wet ball, catching the wet ball, you had dealt with all those things."

TE Joe Kowalewski dealt with those kinds of things, too, at Syracuse, but as he reminded me, he played in the Carrier Dome.

"Today'll be a good day for us," Kowalewski said. "We went from 80 degrees in the bubble and worrying about staying hydrated last week to the total opposite this week. For me, I'd rather have the good elements for playing tight end, catching the ball, running routes. Some players like the offensive and defensive linemen love it, but it can create problems for the offense."

That's one of the big questions in this matchup Sunday, whether the weather will slow down the Patriots' high-flying offense at all. If the Pats continue producing points at their rate of the first 13 games, they would be the second-highest-scoring offense in NFL history. Here's how they stack up against the top five scoring teams, in terms of points per game, of all time:

Start Me Up

Before we get too late in the week, a tip of the hat to Pouha, C.J. Mosley and Brad Kassell. They were on the field for the first two defensive snaps vs. Cleveland on Sunday and thus got the starts in the Jets' "Big 3-4" alignment that features Shaun Ellis at OLB.

It was Pouha's first pro start, Mosley's first start as a Jet (he had two with the Vikings in 2005) and Kassell's first start this season (he had one with the Jets last year).

"They call your number, you just go in and do what you've got to do," Pouha said. "Overall, the most important thing is to be prepared. Whether you go in in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, it doesn't matter. You've just got to be ready."

Sione has a similar view about all the Jets-Patriots hype that has surrounded him and his teammates in the locker room this week.

"It's a game," he said. "I understand there's some history to it, but in the end, when the ball snaps, you pretty much play football."

Hair Today, Hair Tomorrow

It was suggested to Mangold that with his full beard, he was ahead of the curve in staying warm in cold conditions.

"Apparently, from what I’ve heard; the wild people up in Alaska don’t grow beards," he said, "because the water actually freezes to the beard and makes them colder."

So then Nick might be thinking of shaving his beard in time for Sunday's game?

"Absolutely not, no," he replied.