FOXBOROUGH – For sure, there’ll be one Boston-area native at Gillette Stadium today hoping to see the Jets bounce the Patriots from the playoffs: Jets left guard Pete Kendall, a Boston College graduate who makes a Weymouth, Mass., his home.

For Kendall, an 11-year NFL veteran, this is only his third playoff appearance, and he’s relishing it.

“I’m excited, I really am,” he said. “To have a chance to play another playoff game … they’ve been hard to come by in my career. So I’m excited for the opportunity. A lot of times in my career I’ve known and can reserve my seat to watch the playoffs sometime after Thanksgiving.”

It’s been quite frustrating.

“Having tasted it a couple of times, it’s great, it’s enjoyable,” he said. “It’s why we play.”

Kendall got to the playoffs in Mike Holmgren’s first season as the Seattle head coach and in 2004 with the Jets, who signed him after Dennis Green released him from Arizona. Kendall is thankful for Green releasing him.

“Certainly I can’t complain about two playoff appearances in three teams here,” he said. “I’m happy with how things have turned out here.”

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LB Victor Hobson has inside knowledge about how good Patriots QB Tom Brady is, having played with him at the University of Michigan.

“He was always one of those quarterbacks that, no matter what the score was, if we were down, we felt confident that he would be the guy to bring us back,” Hobson said. “That was a feeling that we always had through college and obviously, it translated through his play in the NFL. His record speaks for itself. There aren’t too many with winning records like that in the playoffs.”

Brady, who is 9-2 against the Jets, is 10-1 in the playoffs.