08/04 — Saturday's Green & White Practice lived on today, at least as far as some points Eric Mangini made to his players this morning before their return to two-a-day sessions.

"I explained a little more to the team about why we do it," the Jets head coach said at the top of his daily news conference. "We do it to give the new guys a sense of our gameday operation — warmup, pregame locker room, halftime locker room. It knocks the rust off the coaches, and it extends throughout the organization, so that the trainers get to work on the things they do, public relations, marketing. It's so that as an organization we're moving forward before we get to the games."

Mangini also said today was a continuation of the game-week concept in that he and his staff put together their weekly AAR, or After Action Report, a military flourish in which the staff provides immediate feedback on what happened, things that the players did well or poorly during the game. Then the HC prepares remarks and video to stress the points with the players.

"We come in after a loss and everybody's stinging, everybody feels the pain of that loss, so coaching points can sting a little deeper," he said. "We come in after a win, it's all party hats and noisemakers and coaching points can kind of get glossed over.

"What we have to do is come in on a Monday and have honest time, look at things that need to be corrected, fixes that have to be made, in order to improve. Whatever the pain of a loss or the excitement of a win, all that's great, I understand both sides, but we have to learn from that and grow."

Both sides of the ball had coaching points. The offense struggled on third downs (more of that in my afternoon feature on how the defense is feeling coming out of the practice) and with penalties and late drops, while the defense also committed some penalties and gave up some big plays to the O.

That of course leads to the topic of quarterbacks, and Mangini was asked a two-part question: (a) Has he decided whether Chad Pennington or Kellen Clemens will start behind center in Thursday night's preseason opener at Cleveland, and (b) Will there be any significance to who that starter is?

"No and no," Mangini replied. "I'll look at it, marinate in it and make a decision. It won't be any sort of earth-shattering news."

After a pause, Dave Hutchinson of the Newark Star-Ledger shot back: "We'll be the judge of that, Eric."

"Yes, you will," Mangini said with a smile.

One more snippet from the coach on top draft pick Vernon Gholston's progress.

"If someone's working as hard as he possibly can but the information's coming a little slower, that's something you can understand. You respect the process there," he said. "It's more frustrating and difficult when you think someone isn't working at it. That's a real problem. Then we meet and get it fixed."

Gholston's situation, he said, is the former.

"I think Vernon's being hit with a ton of information, and he can't draw on anything from OTAs or the early part of training camp — it's all new. The neurons haven't snapped together yet."

The Jets have snapped to attention beginning today, though, because in three days they play the first opponents who aren't wearing green and white uniforms in the first action where the tackling is live.