Pride Keeps Bite in His Defense : Jets: Erik McMillan maintains his Pro Bowl standards despite his team’s failures.

Pro Bowl free safety Erik McMillan of the New York Jets likes to feed large rawhide toys to his 11-week-old Rottweiler puppy instead of bones.

“He tears bones up, man,” McMillan said. “They last about two minutes.”

McMillan becomes equally aggressive when he hears criticism of the Jets.

“I’ll just tell you to get out of my face,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with it.”

It’s been a torn-up season for the Jets, a 4-10 experience awash in frustration, injuries, controversy and defeats that will last only two more weeks and then be out of their face.

Where did the season go wrong?

“I couldn’t even tell you, man,” McMillan said.

When they play the Rams Sunday at Anaheim Stadium, the Jets will not be playing for the AFC title, nor the AFC East title, nor the playoffs.

“We’re playing for personal pride,” McMillan said.

The second-year pro out of Missouri didn’t expect to have such a perspective when the season began.

Big things were expected of the Jets, who did not deliver and predictably have faced the wrath of fans and media. In New York, one should expect such a backlash, but that doesn’t make it any easier for McMillan to accept.

“That’s just the way New York people are,” McMillan said. “They expect the greatest. You got to be in the spotlight, you got to be the best at what you’re doing or you can’t make it in this city. They’re hard, they’re very critical and they have a right to be because we haven’t really given them a lot to cheer about.

“But at the same time, on a personal note, I’m sick and tired of hearing all the negative b.s. because it makes it hard to play when you constantly hear all the negative stuff.

“I don’t read the papers, I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t even watch the news because I don’t want to hear any of the b.s. I just go home.”

McMillan’s self-imposed media exile has not altered the media’s view of him. At the end of his rookie season last year, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound McMillan was voted to the all-rookie team and was chosen NFL defensive rookie of the year for his aggressive, ballhawking style.

He led the AFC with eight interceptions, including three in a 44-30 victory over Miami. McMillan, one of four defensive backs the Jets drafted in 1988, started 13 games at free safety and returned two of the interceptions for touchdowns.

The Jets have plunged from last year’s 8-7-1 record, but McMillan’s production has remained constant. His six interceptions lead the team and rank third in the NFL. McMillan is the Jets’ third-leading tackler and leads the team with two fumble recoveries. He has also forced two fumbles, tying him for the team lead. Set up occasionally as a down lineman, McMillan has two sacks, tying him for fourth.

He also has the Jets’ only blocked punt. That came against the New England Patriots, when McMillan blocked the ball out of bounds at the one-yard line. The Jets scored on the next play. In an accounting of the 22 turnovers the Jets have caused this year, McMillan has been involved in eight.

“He can do everything we want him to do,” secondary coach Mike Faulkner said. “He can rush the passer, play the run, play man-to-man on wide receivers or backs and play free safety. He’s got a 39-inch vertical leap and ran a 4.45 (40-yard dash) in college. You put all that together and you’ve got a heck of a player.

“Maybe his year isn’t as great as last year, but he’s had to learn a new system and new terminology.”

The new system was installed after defensive coordinator Bud Carson left to become head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Carson was replaced on Coach Joe Walton’s staff by Ralph Hawkins, who had worked eight years for Chuck Knox. Faulkner said that while coverage is the same under both the Carson and Hawkins systems, the changes in terminology take some time getting used to.

Meanwhile, there have been no changes in McMillan’s own terminology. A noted on-field talker, McMillan prefers to be the one doing the intimidating. After he had three interceptions in the Jets’ victory over Miami last season, McMillan and Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino exchanged insults on the field.

Noting that he is two interceptions shy of sharing the league lead, McMillan came up with a remedy for that. “I got to get two this week,” he said.

Said Faulkner: “You (reporters) keep saying, ‘What about the talk and the mouth?’ Well, I say you can run your mouth, but you’d better back it up.”

So it was more than a little surprising to McMillan when his peers selected him for the Pro Bowl.

“I was very shocked,” he said. “I played my first year very aggressive, trying to intimidate every opponent I came up against, got into a lot of scuffles. And I didn’t think anybody would vote for me. I guess we have class-type people in this league who recognize talent.

“I just came in and played my type of game--make plays and show off.”

But as a team, the Jets just haven’t been making many plays this season, and the pressure on Walton has been mounting. In his seven years coaching the Jets, Walton’s record is 54-57-1. His teams have had three winning seasons and made the playoffs twice. Last year, they were next-to-last in the AFC East. This year, they are last.

The Jets are last in the NFL in total defense and their pass defense ranks 25th among the 28 teams. And only three teams have allowed more points than the Jets. However, in the last three weeks, they have given up only 37 points and won twice--over Atlanta, 27-7, and over San Diego, 20-17--while losing last week to Pittsburgh, 13-0.

In that one, starting quarterback Pat Ryan, who was a backup until Ken O’Brien got hurt, was knocked out of the game on an apparent late hit by Steeler linebacker Greg Lloyd. Ryan got a concussion, and the Jets protested to the league office. With O’Brien’s shoulder sore and Ryan’s head sore, the quarterback position looks a little shaky.

Ryan, who has had six concussions in his 12-year career, is listed as probable, but there is a chance that high-salaried--at $1.1 million--Tony Eason may get some work, too. Eason, claimed on waivers from the Patriots, suited up for his first game last week against the Steelers. He was not in uniform the previous four weeks because the Jets said he didn’t know the offensive system. Even so, the Jets continued to pay Eason $68,750 a week for not even putting on shoulder pads.

Eason came to the Jets after a rapid descent in Foxboro, Mass., where in the span of 19 days he went from starter to fourth string. Patriot owner Victor Kiam, the electric razor huckster, wanted to shave some money off Eason’s contract, but Eason refused. To end the confusing saga, the Patriots placed Eason on waivers, and the Jets picked him up.

That Eason would come to the Jets in their season of turmoil seems appropriate. Last year’s leading receiver, Al Toon, has a concussion. The highest-paid receiver in the NFL at $1.35 million, Toon held out through training camp and has missed five games so far because of injuries.

Wide receiver Wesley Walker earns $770,000 but has caught only eight passes and is now on injured reserve. Running back Freeman McNeil, at $965,000, has been benched in favor of Johnny Hector. Offensive lineman Dave Cadigan, the eighth player selected in the 1988 draft, has been a bust, replaced by 13-year-veteran Dan Alexander, who plays on sore legs.

The Jets are catching a lot of flak for not having a general manager--team president Steve Gutman calls the shots--but they haven’t had one since 1977. It didn’t seem to bother anyone during the 1982 season, when the Jets got all the way to the AFC title game before losing to Miami, 14-0.

But all these factors have a cumulative effect, including the “Joe Must Go” slogans concerning Walton’s future.

“We may be out of here in two weeks, we don’t know,” Faulkner said. “We’re just trying to be professional about it.”

It is in this atmosphere that McMillan finds himself this week. The Rams, he said, have the best receivers in the league. And quarterback Jim Everett is a rising young star.

After the season, that’s the time to wonder about a lost season, not now, McMillan said. After all, he’s got a game plan for Everett.

“I got to get deep,” he said. “In this game, if you’re not where the ball is, you’re not where the action is.”