Talk about a Debbie Downer

For all their talk and hype, the Jets took it on the chin Rocky Balboa style tonight.

With a national television audience peering in and a frenzied crowd filling up most of the New Meadowlands Stadium's gray seats, they laid an egg that Mother Goose would be proud of, dropping an ugly 10-9 loss to the Ravens.

But Rex Ryan wouldn't say the loss was, well, humbling.

"Humbling in the fact that we got beat by a point," Ryan said. "We're obviously not going to go undefeated this year, but our goals remain the same. The fact is we want to win the Super Bowl and we think we can win the Super Bowl. We did get beat by one point by one heck of a football team. We know that. It wasn't our best day." 

Not hardly. The Jets managed only six first downs compared to the 20 they yielded to the Ravens, handing Baltimore six first downs alone via penalty. If that's not bad enough, the Jets converted only 1 of 11 third down attempts, misfiring on their first nine.

"We just didn't get into a rhythm," RT Damien Woody said. "When you don't convert on third downs, you don''t get into that rhythm offensively."

Conversely, the Ravens converted all but eight of their 19 third down attempts, not exactly a number the Jets are proud of.

"It's disappointing. We gave up way too many third down conversions," OLB Jason Taylor said. "I think they were 11 of 19 or something. I mean, they shouldn't even get 19 third downs. But some were penalties, some they made plays on."

So how do they do a better job of getting off the field?

"We have to play a little more discipline with our eyes and communicate a little better," said CB Antonio Cromartie, who was penalized a team-high four times. "I think that's what we need to do."

Said CB Darrelle Revis: "We just need to focus more and do our job. We're an aggressive defense. That's how we play and we're not going to stop playing like that over some penalties. I think we just need to focus more on technique in practice so we can't get these holding penalties."

Otherwise, it will likely be much of the same -- beating themselves.

"It's frustrating and it's disappointing," QB Mark Sanchez said. "There's so much talent in this locker room that there's really no excuse. We took care of the football pretty well, we won the turnover battle. But it was the penalties and lack of third-down conversions. There are a lot of things to be addressed, but we will do that.

"This is a long season. If any team can do it, I think this team can and bounce back next week against a good New England team. That's where our focus is."