This has been a summer of discontent for Justin McCareins.

He can only hope the fall and winter get better.

McCareins, as has been well-publicized, was banned from Eric Mangini’s first training camp practice when he failed a running test.

McCareins took his medicine, walked laps during that first day of practice and passed the running test at dawn the next day. He never moaned about it or made any excuses.

Two people close to McCareins, however, said he had cramps the day of the running test and Mangini made an example out of him.

“That’s behind me,” McCareins said yesterday. “I put it behind me after the first day. You have to ask (Mangini) what he thinks. I moved on awhile ago and tried to focus on what I’m doing in the present moment.” Since that controversial start to camp, McCareins hasn’t exactly appeared to be the first choice as a guest at Mangini’s dinner table. The Jets’ head coach has gone out of his way to praise Jerricho Cotchery as the team’s most impressive player in the offseason program.

Cotchery then began to get more playing time with the first team – at McCareins’ expense, of course.

While Mangini hasn’t named anyone as starters on the team, Cotchery has started the last two preseason games and worked more often with the first team in practice than McCareins.

All the while, McCareins’ name has been the subject of trade rumors.

Through it all, McCareins has continued to grind through training camp, seemingly knowing he’s not the head coach’s favorite player.

When asked certain questions, McCareins often takes a moment and says, “Let me think about how I can answer that …” When asked yesterday if, because of the playing time Cotchery has gotten with the starters, that he “assumes” Cotchery has won the starting job, McCareins said, “I’m not assuming anything. It’s not going to help me to assume or hope for anything. I’ll let the coaches make their decision and try to prove to the coaches every day that I belong out there.” McCareins made it clear yesterday that he wants to remain the starter he’s been since he was traded here two seasons ago.

“It’s very important to me and I’m sure everyone else, too,” McCareins said. “I don’t think guys would be at this level if they didn’t want to be a starter or want to be the guy. It’s very important to me as a competitor and as a player, but I’m not going to put my personal goals and personal needs in front of my team’s.” Mangini, oddly enough, was very complimentary of McCareins yesterday.

“I think Justin’s performance (against the Giants) was tied to the week of practice that he had,” Mangini said.

“I thought he had one of his best weeks of practice last week and you saw that translate into the game.” McCareins seemed bemused by the compliment, insisting that he hasn’t changed since the start of training camp.

“I’ve had some good days of practice throughout camp; I don’t feel like I’ve stepped anything up or anything,” McCareins said.

“I’ve just been out there trying to do the right thing, things the coaches are asking of me. I don’t think I’ve changed into a different player since last week. I’m just approaching it the same way.

“I’ll take (Mangini’s) compliment; I appreciate his compliment, but it doesn’t mean really that much. I appreciate his compliment, but I’m still going to focus and try to improve and do what they ask of me.” McCareins maintains that he’s had a good camp despite seemingly losing his starting job.

“I’ve done well,” he said.

“I’ve eliminated a lot of mental errors. I feel like I’m doing a good job catching the ball when I get the opportunities.

Hopefully, I can translate that when I get into the regular season.”