It has been a long week for the Jets.
Really, it has been a long month.
Going on a long year.
The Jets this week wasted valuable time in damage control over a report quoting players and team officials ripping Tim Tebow when they really needed every second of every day to figure out how they’re going to tackle Rams running back Steven Jackson or cover receiver Danny Amendola tomorrow in St. Louis.
Their last win came 34 days ago.
The Jets are 3-9 in their last 12 games, dating back to last season, damning evidence of a bad team getting worse.
If the Jets, who have lost five of their last six games, do not come away from St. Louis with a victory over the Rams they quickly will realize this about the needless drama that dominated their locker room this week: They ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
If the Jets thought the heat was intense inside their locker room this week with the Tebow nonsense, it is poised to get worse. A lot worse.
This is what happens to teams that talk a big game and are essentially eliminated from playoff contention before Thanksgiving Day turkeys are carved.
“We need a win desperately,’’ coach Rex Ryan said yesterday. “We’re desperate for a win. We have goals to make the playoffs so we have no choice: We have to win. There is no tomorrow. We need a win.’’
If the 3-6 Jets do not beat the 3-5-1 Rams there no longer will be talk of playoffs and how they’re still alive, how they still can make a run, still get hot.
No. A loss in St. Louis turns the Jets into a cold case — with 2012 filed away as the 43rd consecutive season without as much as a Super Bowl appearance.
There, too, is so much more indignity that potentially awaits the Jets with a loss tomorrow.
The Rams, whose last win came 10 days before the Jets’ last win, on Oct. 4, are not exactly one of the league’s powerhouses.
And Brian Schottenheimer, the former Jets offensive coordinator who was the scapegoat for last season’s failure to make the playoffs, lies in wait as the Rams’ offensive coordinator.
Based on the Jets’ unimaginative, faltering offense, ranked 30th in the NFL, new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano has made Schottenheimer look like a cross between Bill Walsh and Don Coryell, leaving the same Jets fans who were chanting for Schottenheimer’s firing suddenly wistfully recalling his creative game plans and wishing he were still here.
Imagine if Schottenheimer’s offense makes Ryan’s defense look silly tomorrow and stamps 30 on them. Wouldn’t that be something?
A loss would leave the Jets at 3-7, in a four-game losing streak freefall (the longest of the Ryan tenure) with a Thanksgiving night game against the Patriots awaiting at MetLife Stadium, where the natives who bother to show up will have more malice for the home team than their hated AFC East rivals.
So after a week of locker-room turmoil caused by some preposterous remarks from anonymous players and team officials ripping a backup quarterback who is barely in on enough plays to make the box score, the Jets finally play a football game tomorrow.
They get a chance to remain relevant into the early part of the holiday season.
They get a chance to prove they’re as tight-knit a team as Ryan insists they are.
They get a chance to show they’re not “terrible,’’ like the anonymous numbskull in that published report, who happens to be a defensive starter, called Tebow. (Would someone please pass that player a mirror?).
There is only one thing that can cure what ails the Jets right now.
“We have to get a win,’’ Ryan said.
Ryan said it feels like “forever’’ since the Jets’ last win, an Oct. 14 rout of the Colts that injected such hope into the season before it all went bad.
“Everybody knows we still have a chance,’’ safety Eric Smith said yesterday. “We know we’re not out of it at this point. We still have some life.’’
That life, however, is fading fast.