Jets to honor Long Island-based heroic veteran during Cowboys game

Matias Ferreira had just moved to New York from Clayton County, Georgia, when he attended a Jets game in New Jersey about 15 years ago.“I’m sitting there hanging out with my family, wearing a Georgia Bulldogs hat up in the nosebleeds.I wasn’t really a Jets fan at the time,” Ferreira, a 36-year-old Suffolk County police officer, told The Post.Soon after, the PA announcer asked members of the military to stand so that they could be properly recognized for their service to the nation.Like that, Ferreira, a Marine who lost both of his legs to an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2011, rose to his feet as a nearby “six-foot-five, 300-pound” man was brought to tears of gratitude after seeing the 36-year-old’s two prosthetic devices.“He goes, ‘What are you doing in that Georgia hat?’ and I say, ‘I just moved here,’ ” recalled Ferreira, a former machine gunner.“He takes off his Wayne Chrebet jersey.

He gives it to me and goes, ‘I want you to wear this from now on — you’re a New Yorker.’”Ever since the touching moment, Ferreira, who played semipro football in Atlanta, has been a proud “Jets fan by association,” and will be honored by Gang Green as the veteran of the game this Sunday against the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.As an active duty member of Suffolk’s 4th Precinct — he can drive a police car with no issues and is in top physical shape — Ferreira was utterly blindsided by the good news at a recent news conference the department held.“I was told, make sure you’re dressed well, we’re doing something on street racing, which I had been involved in, arrest-wise.I go into the conference room and see the Jets military liaison,” he recalled.Shortly after, the man’s phone rings, and a voice on the other side asks Ferreira to come forward.It was former Jets fullback Tony Richardson on FaceTime.“He says, ‘Man, my dad is a veteran from the Marine Corps, a Purple Heart recipient,’” recalled the police officer, who curren...