08/23 — The Jets' 10-7 victory over the Giants was a green and white kaleidoscope. Turn it one way and there were some appealing patterns: an outstanding pass rush against the defending Super Bowl champions, a well-executed game-winning touchdown pass from Brett Ratliff to Paul Raymond to provide the necessary points with six minutes left.

Twist it another way and the picture isn't as pretty. Twelve penalties, the most in any of the 44 games of Eric Mangini's head-coaching tenure, cost the Jets an awesome Brett Favre-to-Jerricho Cotchery TD strike, perhaps Brad Smith's finest catch as a pro to date, some field position and lots of momentum.

"Coach seems like a psychic," Cotchery said. "Before the game he said he was looking for awareness and communication out there."

Meaning perhaps that A&C contributed to the pretty parts of the Jets picture. And a lack of same led to the points that will be stressed Monday and Tuesday before the Jets head into final-preseason-mode with their annual Kickoff Luncheon on Wednesday and their trip to Philadelphia to play the Eagles on Thursday night.

In our coverage of the game, Eric Allen is writing through his game story with quotes and info on the Jets' pass rush and the play from all three QBs — Favre, Ratliff and Kellen Clemens — and Stephen Haynes will write about the strong first-half defensive performance led by linebackers Calvin Pace and David Harris. This is not to forget those big names, but the pass rush, for example, came from everywhere against the champs.

The Jets' eight sacks were their most in any game since they dropped Phil Simms eight times in their season-ending 27-21 win in 1988.

"We just wanted to go out and play aggressive. On defense we were able to communicate in the secondary and up front," said safety Abram Elam, who had a fine third-down, second-effort sack of David Carr to set up the winning TD drive. "We got a chance to come off the edge tonight. If you're getting blocked, you can't stay blocked. I was just trying to be aggressive till the whistle blew."

"We were out there executing, having fun, flying around," said CB Drew Coleman, who also had a Carr sack, in the third quarter, then sealed the game from an overtime-inducing last-second field goal with his interception of rookie QB Andre Woodson with 1:06 left.

The prettiest execution on offense, other than Favre-to-Cotchery, was when Ratliff covered 51 yards on two completions to put the Jets on top to stay. The first was to TE Jason Pociask for 27, the last was a progression to the right side of the field from Ratliff to Raymond.

You'll remember that Raymond failed to hold a late game-winning TD grab in the end zone a week ago against Washington. If you read newyorkjets.com, you'll also remember that Ratliff said if he had another chance, he'd go back to Raymond again.

"Making a play like that really gives me confidence," said Raymond, the Brown University receiver and sprinter who separated from second-year DB Geoffrey Pope to make the catch. "Brett showed a lot for him to come back to me after last week. I really appreciate it. We gave each other a hug back on the sideline."

"I started left with Marcus Henry, but his guy was way off, so I came right back to Paul," said Ratliff, who with his 51 passing yards still has a chance to be leading the NFL with 451 passing yards this preseason. "Paul got open, I put it up there for him and he really gave me a great catch. He did the hard part. I just threw it."

Of course there are issues for the Jets. The ground game could grind out only 58 yards on 26 carries. And there were the penalties. But Mangini took some of the heat for them, saying of the : "I didn't do a good enough job emphasizing getting the tackles up [on the line] even tighter than they were. Like I said, that did come down from the league. Anytime that's a point of emphasis, you'd better get it fixed and you'd better get it straightened out. I could've done a much better job with that."

And the players weren't alibiing the 11 offensive flags.

"They called it tight, so you've got to play it how they call it," guard Alan Faneca said. "We've got to do a lot of things better."

Almost lost in the ins and outs of the game was the fact that the Jets scored another preseason win over the Giants. After 40 summer games and 11 regular-season matchups between the teams since they first met at the Yale Bowl in the summer of 1969, the teams are tied at 25-25-1.

But holding the Giants' vaunted pass rush to a pair of sacks wasn't something tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson was going to brag about.

"Obviously there are a lot of things we can work on and get better at," Brick said. "Each week we're trying to proceed in a positive direction."

And Ratliff had a similar take.

"Any win is nice. It is a little sweeter when it's the Giants," he said. "But I'm just trying to go out and play no matter who it is, and we came out on top."