Jets draw blank vs. Packers and in explaining loss

There was bewilderment splashed across their faces, sprinkled in with disappointment.

The Jets' five-game winning streak had been snapped in head-scratching fashion, leaving them wondering just how they could've gone so belly up and been so flat. Some players probably would've been better off walking to their cars in the New Meadowlands Stadium parking lot wearing a Charlie Brown-type goofy sheet over their heads, holding a shopping bag loaded with coal.

At least those Halloween costumes would've been better than what the Jets were disguised as for the better part of 60 minutes against the Packers Sunday - a paper champion rather than a team with lofty aspirations of playing in the Super Bowl.

"It's disappointing for everyone across the board, except for the defense, of course," Mark Sanchez said after the 9-0 loss to Green Bay. "I think our defense did a really good job today. It was a great effort. They held them to nine points and we need to help them out on offense.

"That starts with the quarterback. I can't give them picks like that. I was happy with the decisions, but the throws have to be better. It was a poor performance by myself, and it's tough to get an offense going when your quarterback isn't playing well."

It wasn't only Sanchez who stunk it up offensively, causing the Jets (5-2) to get blanked for the first time since Nov. 10, 2006, a 10-0 loss to the Bears.

He did throw a pair of interceptions for the second straight game. But he didn't get all that much help in the second half, when he finally regained some of his early-season accuracy.

The Jets moved the ball decently enough at times, totaling 360 yards, yet produced no points because their drives kept sputtering.

There were dropped passes, drive-killing turnovers and untimely penalties. Their 13 offensive possessions ended like this: five punts, three on downs, two interceptions, a missed field goal, a lost fumble and the end of the game.

"Our charge is to score more points than our opponent," fullback Tony Richardson said. "And when we don't do that, it means that we didn't do our job. And so we all wear that today. It's not on one person. Mark took the [blame] from the offensive standpoint, and it's not on Mark. It's on everybody that put on an offensive uniform today . . . because we didn't score any points at home."

Nick Mangold's holding penalty doomed the third-quarter drive in which Nick Folk missed a 37-yarder. "A shutout is ridiculous when you are at home,'' Mangold said. "You should never do that . . . It was different guys on different plays, a whole bunch of different areas that we just weren't good on."

But as bad as they were, the Jets trailed 3-0 early in the fourth quarter and still had a shot at making something happen. But after a holding penalty on Dustin Keller backed them up 10 yards to set up first-and-20 at Green Bay's 47, Charles Woodson came up with a key interception, wrestling the ball away from Keller after a 4-yard reception.

Mason Crosby nailed a 41-yard field goal eight plays later and added a 40-yarder with 27 seconds left.

"It just seemed like you get a little momentum - penalty," tackle Damien Woody said. "That's what killed us. We had costly penalties in bad situations. The next thing you know, you are second-and-long, third-and-long. It's just hard to convert. Those situations kept occurring over and over again, and so that's the area that we definitely have to clean our game up."

They'll also have to let this one fester for six more days, knowing they've been knocked out of first place, a game behind the Patriots in the AFC East. The Jets square off against the feisty Lions in Detroit on Sunday.

"We let one get away from us," Rex Ryan said. "I thought we were in a great position to win with the way that our defense played. We just never got it done."

"It's just disappointing," linebacker Bart Scott said. "We had an opportunity to go 6-1 and stay atop our division and we let one get away. But we will battle back and be ready next week on the road against a capable opponent and we'll try to become 6-2."