I talked to kicker Jay Feely on Friday about living with the uncertainty at his position (there’s more on that about two posts down), and asked him what he planned to do after his day-to-day career in football.

He said politics. And for the next 10 minutes he showed a real depth issues like education policy and  welfare. The only thing that would hold him back, he said, are four young kids. “I know what kind of dad I want to be,” Feely said.

Here’s part of the story that ran today in The Journal News. (That pic is Feely from the Easter Seals annual meeting.) The whole thing is here.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – In the last few weeks, as the thigh injury that has kept place-kicker Mike Nugent out of the lineup has healed, there has been a competition between the season-opening starter and his replacement, Jay Feely.

Each week they go against each other in practice, and each week the coaching staff decides who will start. Although Feely has been chosen each time, he has never been told ahead of time he is playing. Not once. He just dresses for the game, and Nugent gets pulled aside to head out for warm-ups with the other inactives.

This week, Nugent has been listed as “probable” to play. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he will be chosen to be the kicker for the 8-3 Jets today in their 4:15 p.m. game against Denver (6-5) at the Meadowlands.

The ability to remain clear-headed despite the drama, Feely said, is part of what it takes to be a good kicker anyway. And the ability to negotiate the shark-infested waters of professional football is great training for his next field: politics.

Over the years, Feely has met with Karl Rove and former presidents Jimmy Carter and the late Gerald Ford. President George W. Bush and he once waited for an hour outside Tony Blair’s London office before the then-British prime minister had to take an emergency call from another head of state.

Most of those meetings wouldn’t have been possible without the NFL on his resumé.
“When I got into the NFL, that provided me with the platform to get that name and face recogntion that is so key,” Feely said.

J.C. Watts, whom the Jets drafted in 1981 with the second pick in the eighth round, is one of the politicians from whom Feely sought advice. Watts, a Republican from Oklahoma who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-2003, told Feely to use those football connections to bolster recognition for a possible run for congress in his home state of Florida.

Feely, 32, describes himself as a social conservative but says he is more liberal when it comes to fiscal policy. He has been a financial planner during lean years when he wasn’t playing football after playing at Michigan, but he doesn’t want to go back into finance when the kicking gig is over.

Note: The Jets are asking fans attending today’s game to bring a new or gently used coat to benefit Jersey Cares. “This time of year, it’s more important that we give back,” Jets coach Eric Mangini said.