Between the two of them, the top Bills receivers the Jets will be facing Sunday at Giants Stadium, Eric Moulds and Peerless Price, have caught 130 passes for 1,767 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Neither of those players, by the way, is atop the list of AFC receivers. Colts wideout Marvin Harrison leads the conference with 89 receptions. Pittsburgh’s Hines Ward is second with 76 catches.
The numbers are all the evidence you need if you’re wondering why Jets receiver Laveranues Coles gets nearly no attention as one of the AFC’s top wideouts.
As good as Coles’ numbers are – 50 catches, a 13.2-yard average and two TDs – they’re modest by the above-mentioned standards.
That, however, doesn’t measure his importance to the Jets and Chad Pennington, with whom he’s developed a special quarterback-receiver bond since coming into the NFL together three years ago.
“He’s having a good year, he really is, but quietly,” Herman Edwards said of Coles yesterday. “I think a lot of people don’t really take note of him, because there are so many good receivers in our conference. Sometimes, he kind of goes overlooked. But the more he plays, the more people will understand he’s having a good year.”
Despite a slow start, Coles is on a pace to catch a career-high 80 passes this season, which would be the best performance by a Jet since Keyshawn Johnson caught 89 passes in 1999.
The catalyst not only to the Jets’ turnaround from their 1-4 start, but to Coles’ season, too, has been Pennington.
In the three-plus games Vinny Testaverde started before getting hurt in Week 4 at Jacksonville, Coles caught seven passes for 66 yards. Since Pennington took over – spanning the rest of that Jacksonville game and six starts – Coles has caught 43 passes for 594 yards.
The same uncanny, intangible relationship Testaverde always had with Wayne Chrebet is what Pennington and Coles possess.
“Laveranues has stepped up; he’s gotten better from last year,” Edwards said. “He’s a guy that has a lot of confidence right now. His hands are better than they were last year and the precision of his routes is better. He’s fun to watch when he gets the ball in his hands, because you never know where he’s going to run.
“Him and Chad have a pretty good rapport, a good feel for each other.”
Coles, who caught a career-high 59 passes last season, a number he has a chance to eclipse Sunday, spoke yesterday about how he and Pennington would constantly talk since early in their careers here together.
“We both see the same things on the field,” Coles said. “When I line up outside, he’ll look at me and I’ll look at him and we’ll know what each other’s thinking just by looking at the defense. It’s just something we’ve grown into.
“We’ve been that way since our rookie year. When Chad wasn’t playing, I’d come off the field in practice and Chad would say, ‘Did you see this?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah.’ He’d say, ‘I’m going to tell Vinny this.’ He always had that leadership role even when he wasn’t at the controls.”
The two also talked about their goals, about being the Jets’ future.
“One of the high goals was to try to be a Jerry Rice and Steve Young combination,” Coles said. “That way if you fall short, you’re at least still good. We came in and wanted to be good as a duo and we’re working hard and getting better every week.”
Chrebet, who’s taken Coles, a native Floridian, under his wing and brought him into his family in New Jersey, called this “just the beginning” for Coles.
“This is only his third year in the league and only first full year being the go-to guy,” Chrebet said. “He’s got a great upside. The statistics speak for themselves with the amount of production he’s had since Chad’s been in there. You get on the same page like that and you produce big numbers and make a lot of big plays.”
The more big plays Coles makes – and he seems to make a few every game – the more he’ll be recognized as one of the top receivers in the AFC. That likely won’t be long from now.
