Jets put themselves in tough shape

Rex Ryan had the spotlight all on himself during the week, explaining he needed to win Saturday's game against the Giants because he basically was obsessed with taking over the city.

Now he'll have four years to think about how it all went wrong.

"Rex understands that he put a lot out there. He was really excited about this game," quarterback Mark Sanchez said after the Jets' brutal 29-14 loss to the Giants at MetLife Stadium, a defeat that might've foiled the Jets' chances of making a third straight trip to the playoffs.

"These last two games really were must-wins. We just missed some opportunities and we didn't execute when we needed to."

So the Jets (8-7) lost control of their own destiny and will need a lot of help to punch a postseason ticket for a franchise-best third consecutive season. The only way the Jets can reach the playoffs is to beat the Dolphins (5-10) a week from Sunday in Miami, have the Bengals lose to the Ravens, have the Titans lose to the Texans, and have either the Raiders lose to the Chargers or the Broncos lose to the Chiefs.

In essence, they'll need something just short of a Christmas miracle.

"I am not going to say we are out of it, or maybe I should," Ryan said. "But clearly if you don't win this football game, it's not in your control anymore. A lot of things have to happen. All I can say is we are going to compete to win. We are going to go down to Miami, they're going to get our best shot and we'll see if it is good enough, and then we will see what happens, if we can make it or not."

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Lately, it hasn't been good enough.

"We don't deserve to control our own destiny,'' linebacker Bart Scott said. "We haven't played good enough football to do that. It is what it is. You just try to finish strong. If you don't make it to the playoffs, you have no one to blame but yourself."

There certainly was plenty of blame to go around Saturday.

Sanchez, who threw a career-high 59 passes and completed 30 of them, was intercepted twice and lost a fumble in the end zone. Sanchez was sacked in the end zone for a safety, easily could have been picked off three more times and had two fumbles reversed after replay reviews.

The Jets were 4-for-21 on third-down conversions, keeping them from sustaining much of a rhythm, and averaged 3.7 yards on their 89 plays (the Giants had 55 plays).

"I think they came out with a few disguises in coverages today and kind of confused us all," wide receiver Santonio Holmes said. "We didn't get the ball moving as much as we should have today. We definitely should have done a better job of converting third downs. You can't win any ballgames without converting third downs and getting your offense a chance."

Defensively, the Jets also had their share of critical gaffes, none more apparent than Victor Cruz's 99-yard touchdown reception that put the Giants (8-7) ahead for good at 10-7 with 2:12 left in the first half.

A simple play that shouldn't have gone for more than maybe 11 yards and a first down swung the pendulum squarely in the Giants' favor. Missed tackles by Kyle Wilson, Antonio Cromartie and Eric Smith on the play allowed Cruz to motor nearly the length of the field, and the Jets never seemed to recover from that crushing play.

"We got embarrassed," said linebacker David Harris, whose interception set up Sanchez's 1-yard touchdown run that cut the Giants' lead to 20-14 with 7:17 remaining. "On defense, you can't not have a good day tackling. That 99-yard pass to Cruz, that was demoralizing."

Scott lamented the rash of errors the Jets piled up.

"You just can't make the mistakes that we made, you can't give up big plays," he said. "It's the same recipe. You can't have turnovers. You can't give up big plays in trying to be successful. Your percentages of winning in this league go down tremendously. We had five different ways to win the game near the end, and we figured out a way to lose."

And it was a loss that nearly knocked them out of playoff contention.

"Do we deserve to make the playoffs?" Holmes said. "If the doors open, we'll walk right through them."

But in the meantime, they're back to being the "little brothers" in town again. For now, anyway.

"I don't want to be the second-best team in this city," Ryan said. "No chance. I'm not signing up for that. We'll play them again. We'd be more than happy to go play them right now, but we're going to have to wait four years. I'd like to play them again this year, but we'll see.

"That's a good football team. I'm never going to concede anything. I will concede that they were better today. No question about it. They did a better job coaching and all that stuff, and that's where it starts.

"We had some opportunities but we just didn't come up with the victory today."