3 Jets players getting ready for a different kind of cut

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — As the New York Jets get ready to get their roster down to 53 players, at least three playerson the team are getting ready for a different sort of cut this weekend. And in it at least one player’s case, his wife is thrilled about it.

Many on the Jets offensive line are sporting mustaches this week, something that is beginning to catch-on beyond just the linemen and now includes others on the roster.It is a tradition brought into the team’s locker room by starting right tackle Breno Giacomini, now in his second year with the Jets, and it is gradually beginning to take hold as it grows in popularity. That’s a fortunate thing for everyone out there.

The tradition of growing a mustachebegan for Giacomini in 2008 when he was then a rookie with the Green Bay Packers. The origins of the tradition are steeped in mystery he says because no one really knows why the veterans told the rookies to starting growing some upper lip fuzz. They were just told by the old players to do it and they dutifully obliged.

So every year since then including when he went to the Seattle Seahawks a couple years later, Giacomini has grown out a mustache prior to the fourth game of preseason and last year with the Jets, he got the tradition rolling in a new locker room. It has only grown since, pardon the pun.

“It’s great to see it take off in here. It is manly and it is us, it is who we are,” Giacomini told Metro in this exclusive, ground-breaking expose on facial hair inside the Jets locker room.

“A lot of guy are doing it including Wes [Johnson] over there and even [Matt] Flynn is joining us. It’s just a fun thing to do at a time when camp gets hot and the days get long. You’re tired. But you have this stache to lift your spirits because it is pure awesomeness.

Awesomeness apparently doesn’t mean what it used to but it is certainly unique. He claims to be excited because “this is my best one yet.”

Johnson, a center on the Jets, is going with the goatee look in sort of a John Kruk mold. Dakota Dozier, in his second-year with the Jets and in his second year doing this challenge, looks like the son of a deposed Middle Eastern dictator with his own mustache. He said his teammates are calling him a principal or a State Farm Insurance salesman.

And even Giacomini had to laugh and admit that his mustache is a bit creepy. But he’ll keep and as for next year “Hellyeahwe’re doing it again. Even bigger.”

The calendars are already marked.

“Coming in this year I knew that Week 4, we were going to do it again. So I came in ready. It isn’t just growing a mustache, it is a state of mind,” Dozier said, smirking and unable to keep a straight face.

“This year is definitely better. I’ve been growing it out all camp, knowing this would come – the beard so I shaved that off and kept the mustache on and came home and my wife saw it. She was like ‘What’s that on your lip?’ So yeah, I’ve really been working on it. I love it. It will stay as long as my wife lets me keep it.

“Which means you may not see it next week.”