FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Jets are such a cruel joke, it isn’t even funny.
And the joke is on their fans yet again.
Remember all those Super Bowl dreams that mushroomed when Aaron Rodgers arrived as the so-called savior?
Forget them.
They lay shattered in pieces on the ground inside Gillette Stadium after Patriots 25, Jets 22.
That’s after Jacoby Brissett, pressed into action when Drake Maye left in the first half with a head injury, magically transformed into Jacoby Brady and marched his team into position for Rhamondre Stevenson’s 1-yard TD run with 22 seconds left.
“This is a moment of darkness,” interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich said.
And to think, Rodgers thought he had emerged from the darkness.
“Yeah, I’ve been in the darkness,” Rodgers said. “You’ve got to go in there, make peace with it.”
Yet another date that will live in Jets infamy.
Rodgers might as well have started singing: “Hello darkness, my old friend, come to talk with you again.”
Rodgers, locked in a darkness retreat with a franchise that never sees the light.
And may not again for years.
Yet another punch to the solar plexus, compliments of your New York Jets.
Remember Woody Johnson firing Robert Saleh because he was certain the promotion of Ulbrich was going to light a spark under one of the best rosters the owner had ever seen?
Remember all the hullabaloo over Davante Adams’ postgame speech in Pittsburgh and the effect it was about to have on the culture? Adams and Garrett Wilson catching darts from Aaron Rodgers? Are you kidding me? Dare ya to stop us.
“If we’re not scoring 30,” Rodgers said, “we’re underachieving. This offense can do that every single week.”
Except they’re not scoring 30. They’re underachieving. They haven’t scored more than 24 all year.
Remember how Haason Reddick (26 snaps, two pressures) was going to wreak havoc in his long-awaited Jets debut?
The best-laid plans of mice and Woody go awry yet again.
A 2-6 disgrace of a football “team” with a group of veteran independent contractors and an interim first-time head coach whose head is swimming as defensive coordinator also and a kicker who once again betrayed the faith shown in him with a missed PAT wide left and missed 44-yard FG wide left.
With the game on the line, it wasn’t Jerod Mayo’s defense that showed up soft. It was Ulbrich’s defense, formerly Saleh’s defense.
“I’m pissed,” Ulbrich said. “They’re pissed. I’m hurt. They’re hurt.”
He can’t possibly imagine how Jets fans feel.
And a delay of game penalty before a two-point conversion after Rodgers (17-28, 233 yards, 2 TDs, INTs) had marched the Jets to a 22-17 lead with a 10-play, 70-yard drive with 2:57 left.
“Well, they start the clock at 20, and we had a shift and a motion, and by the time it came down to it, the defense they were playing wasn’t good for the play that was called,” Rodgers said. “I figured, let’s just move it back to the 7; not that much of a difference. I liked the play that we called, but they brought zero pressure, and I guessed wrong; they guessed right.”
A very bad time to guess wrong. His two-point conversion pass to Mike Williams failed.
In the third quarter: Ulbrich, a good man who deserves better, decided to trust Greg (The Crazy Leg) Zuerlein with a 29-yard field goal to grab a 16-14 lead when he could have trusted Rodgers & Co. on fourth-and-1 at the Patriots 11.
“I always back ’Brich,” Rodgers said.
In the first quarter: Rodgers burned all three of his timeouts with 1:31 left. “Our operation was a little slow at times,” Rodgers said.
Remember how the Jets were primed to end the Bills’ four-year stranglehold on the division?
Remember how this was going to be the year? The year that the Aaron Rodgers Jets were going to end their 13-year playoff drought? And if the football gods could somehow allow it, Rodgers would have a chance to be Broadway Joe Namath and that Lombardi Trophy standing so lonesome inside the Atlantic Health Training Center just might have company.
There was a time when the Jets would have celebrated being tied with the Patriots. Just not in the AFC basement.
“The NFL is hard,” Rodgers said. “It’s hard to win. Harder when you make it difficult on yourself.”
Failing to handle adversity is making it difficult on yourself. Remember how Bill Belichick used to make Jets quarterbacks see ghosts? The Jets performed Sunday as if they saw the Ghost of Belichick.
This was a loss so revolting that the Jets do not deserve to use the Yankees in the World Series as cover.
But the energy, that elusive energy, it was there.
“Where we fell short was in the execution, especially in the critical moments of this game,” Ulbrich said.
Back in 1976, the head coach of the 0-14 expansion Buccaneers, John McKay, was attributed a quote that he may or may not have said. When asked what he thought of his team’s execution: “I’m in favor of it.”
How many Jets fans today would second that emotion?