Most football players would kill for the opportunity to play for Bill Parcells. Johnny Mitchell is not most football players.

Johnny Mitchell is an ex-football player again today.

Johnny Mitchell quit the team yesterday.

Once an enigma, always an enigma.

“Well, we got a roster thing here, fellas, anybody know what it is?” Parcells said coyly yesterday at the start of his press session. “Anybody out to practice today?”

“Somebody left?” one reporter asked.

“Oh yeah, sure, who was it? C’mon. C’mon. Show me somethin’,” Parcells challenged. “C’mon! You should get it. You guys are rusty. I gotta knock a little rust off all of ya.”

One reporter made a wrong guess.

“Who would be unpredictable?” Parcells said now.

“Johnny Mitchell,” two reporters sang out in chorus.

Bingo!

“He’s gone,” Parcells said.

Parcells has been a miracle worker getting the 1-15 Jets in position for the Super Bowl after two seasons. He has gotten the best out of virtually every player he has coached. But even he could not reach Johnny Mitchell. Because no one can.

So much for the experiment at F-Back.

Parcells gave Mitchell a two-year, $1.2 million chance (no signing bonus) to revive an unfulfilled career after two years away from the game he never seemed to love as much as he should have. Mitchell was 28 years old now and years removed from the manchild who was Bruce Coslet’s No. 1 draft pick in 1992 out of Nebraska. He was years removed from the baby-faced tight end with the wondrous receiving gifts who claimed he was open all the time, which was why Boomer Esiason nicknamed him 7-11.

“He came in here and gave me that song and dance about wanting to play, and he’d done all this this winter,” Parcells said. “I said, ‘Well, we’ll find out.’ Didn’t take long, did it? One day.”

Mitchell was gone before the morning practice without informing Parcells.

“He just didn’t come to practice,” Parcells said. “But he turned all his stuff in to somebody.”

That leaves Parcells with Richie Anderson, Blake Spence, Jermaine Wiggins and possibly Jerald Sowell now as the F-Backs, with Keith Byars one heartbeat closer to a return. While reserve offensive lineman Erik Norgard also left camp yesterday after the morning practice, telling Parcells he didn’t want to play any more, and was placed on the Reserve Left Camp list, meaning he could return, Parcells simply terminated Mitchell. Mitchell’s history – he bolted Dolphins training camp three years ago – left Parcells less than exasperated.

“I would say it’s usually not like you remembered it,” Parcells said. “It’s usually a little bit unlike you remembered it. I can think back to when I was playing. One of the greatest things I ever did was try to play in two alumni games [at Wichita State]. As soon as you’re out there for five plays, you know you can’t do this anymore.”

Parcells didn’t notice any appreciable drop in Mitchell’s skill level.

“It’s sad,” Parcells said. “One day, you would think, you would give it more than that. I’m not worried about it. I’m glad he quit now. I’d rather have him quit now.

“I told the rest of ’em, ‘Anybody else gonna quit, just quit now. Don’t let me waste my time.’ It’s not for everybody. I mean, understand that. Football just really isn’t for everybody. It’s a tough game and it’s hard and sometimes it’s unfair and so it’s not for everybody.”

Mitchell had actually impressed Parcells with his off-season work ethic.

“That’s what kinda surprises me, he put all that work in … what for?” Parcells said.

Jet players first thought Mitchell had overslept. “That was a little bit of a surprise … to some,” Vinny Testaverde said. “Especially this early in camp anyway. I wish him well. I didn’t talk to him. Sometimes you go through camp and you get down on yourself a little bit and you don’t think things are going your way. Maybe if he would have talked to some of the guys they would have steered him in the right direction and he might still been here. But I haven’t talked to anyone that’s talked to him. so you don’t know what he’s thinking and what’s going through his mind.”

“If it ain’t in his heart, it ain’t in his heart,” Bryan Cox said.

“I don’t think he gave himself a chance to show what he can do,” Aaron Glenn said. “Maybe it’s something we don’t know about. You can’t even judge.”

“What can you say about Johnny?” Mo Lewis said. “He probably has a lot of things on his mind. He’s been out of football, and unless you’ve been out like that and you don’t think you have that competitive spirit, there’s no reason for him to be out there … He’s a great athlete but if you don’t have the heart there’s no reason to be out there.”

“He was just more quiet than usual,” Victor Green said. “I heard somebody say he said he was making too many mental errors and he couldn’t get the stuff down, but I don’t know the real reason, I haven’t talked to Johnny.”