Mark Sanchez and confident New York Jets are ready for San Diego Chargers

New York

BY Kristie Ackert

DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Saturday, January 16th 2010, 4:00 AM

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The trash-talking was toned down Friday, with just some loose banter in Gang Green's locker room. There were no bold guarantees, just Jets talking about their belief in themselves. After a week of beating their chests, the Jets left New Jersey quietly, turning their focus toward beating the Chargers while heading out to San Diego for tomorrow's AFC divisional playoff game.

Think of it as the confident calm before tomorrow's storm.

After a light practice Friday, during which the Jets blared the Chargers' fight song from speakers on the sidelines just once, Rex Ryan's gang left its training facility with a new sense of confidence.

"If you just look at it on paper, we match up well against these guys," tackle Damien Woody said before the Jets arrived in San Diego Friday night. "I've heard people say we don't even have a chance to go out there and win. I am looking at it and I don't understand why not."

That confidence is something that had been missing from recent Jets playoff teams, defensive end Shaun Ellis said.

"Last time we went to the playoffs with (former coach Eric) Mangini, we were a little antsy, we weren't settled and we couldn't get settled and it kept us off-balance," said Ellis, who in his 10th season is the longest-tenured Jet. "I remember telling myself, 'The next time we get to the playoffs, we have to be a calm and settled bunch, we just can't be out there rattling ourselves, we can't be fighting against ourselves.'

"This team is different," Ellis added, looking around a quiet locker room. "We are a confident bunch."

Some would say that is an understatement. Ryan, the brash first-year coach who weeks earlier mistakenly declared his team out of the playoffs, last week boldly printed up a postseason schedule that included a trip to the Super Bowl and a save-the-date for a parade up the Canyon of Heroes. To outsiders, that approach may seem overly confident, but inside the locker room, the Jets' players believe in their new identity.

"Coaches have said that we had an identity before, but we didn't have one. This is the first team I've been on that you know what you are going to get, you know who you are and you know what it takes for us to win as a team," said guard Brandon Moore. "I think that's where our comfort comes from. You know what it takes to win, you know who you are, and that brings that confidence that you see in us."

That boldness made a difference last week when the Jets were underdogs going into Cincinnati, wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery said. Unlike their last playoff game, a wild-card loss to the Patriots three years ago, the Jets were not intimidated by what was ahead of them.

"I didn't get the sense we knew where we were headed," Cotchery said of the 2006 Jets team that lost to the Patriots. "But this team is definitely a confident team. We feel like we have the talent in the room to make a run at it. I definitely feel that confidence from everyone in here. There is no doubt at all in this locker room."