It is often said that NFL coaches comprise a fraternity, an itinerant pigskin brotherhood that often begins as young, underpaid interns and evolves over the years — and can lead to the Holy Grail … a job as an NFL head coach.

Sunday’s Week 5 game between the Jets and the visiting Miami Dolphins is not only the renewal of one of the most bitter and entertaining rivalries in the AFC East, if not the entire NFL, but it will also serve as an unofficial reunion among some of the team’s coaches. The most prominent of which is the long-standing relationship, and friendship, between Jets second-year HC Robert Saleh and ‘Fins rookie HC Mike McDaniel.

The two coaches, who many believe to be among the brightest younger minds in the game, first encountered each other some 15 years ago, when Saleh was an intern working with the defensive unit of the Houston Texans. After a coaching change, the Texans hired Gary Kubiak away from Denver, who took along McDaniel (then a coaching intern under Broncos’ HC Mike Shanahan for his hometown team since age 22) as an offensive assistant.

“So, I was an intern, my first year in the NFL,” Saleh, 43, said. “I thought I was rich, making five bucks an hour. And I was all alone in this massive staff room. And when Dom Capers was relieved of his duties and Vic Fangio, I was his assistant. I technically didn’t have a coach’s contract, so I had nowhere to go, my internship was going all the way through the middle of February [2006], end of February, somewhere in there. So, I was just hanging out. I knew they were hiring Coach Kubiak; they lost a playoff game.

“And before the rest of the staff got there, I flew back in town, went to his press conference, introduced myself, took out some of his boxes, just trying to be around to be present. They showed up, Mike McDaniel and everyone showed up, Kyle Shanahan, all those guys. We went out to a couple of dinners, and I was just trying to immerse myself. Just a fly on a wall, hanging with Coach and answering whatever questions he had with regards to the building. And as he might recall, I went into his office and was like ‘Coach, I want to be here.’ I had offers to go with Coach [Dom] Capers but I wanted to be in Houston, I wanted to be with him, and luckily for me he kept me along.”