The Jets awakened Wednesday to Life After Santonio, one week after they awakened to Life After Revis, which means they are now Dead Team Walking.
Maybe Rex Ryan knows it, maybe he doesn’t. Most likely it’s not in his DNA to ever consider conceding it, certainly he knows he can’t ever wave the white flag in his position, much less with three quarters of the season remaining. Denial is a river that flows through Florham Park, N.J.
R. I. P. 2012 New York Jets.
Of course, when he is asked if his expectations have changed, what do you expect him to say? That he’s lowered them to 6-10?
“No,” Ryan said. “Not at all. Because we’re a team. Every team goes through some unfortunate injuries, things like that. That happens in this league. There’s a 100 percent injury rate in this league. … No, our expectations are where they always are. Right now when you look at it, but it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re still on top of our division with two other teams. … The fact we lost two excellent football players does not change our expectations.”
I would be much more willing to drink from his glass half-full if Eli Manning was the Jets quarterback, and if Jason Pierre-Paul was terrifying the other quarterback, for starters. Ryan has his young franchise quarterback playing too often like a backup quarterback and a backup quarterback who is not an every-down quarterback. If Mark Sanchez doesn’t stop surrendering the football, Ryan is in a damned-if-he-does, damned-if-he-doesn’t quandary. And Ryan’s leading sacker is Garrett McIntyre (2).
Sorry, but it’s not yet Tebow Time. At some point, if Sanchez doesn’t wake up, Ryan may need to spark his team by flipping that nerve center switch. But someone please tell me: Will Tebow be able to improve upon Sanchez’s 49.2 completion percentage and 69.6 quarterback rating throwing to Moe, Larry and Kerley, and now Jason Hill, because they changed the locks on Plaxico Burress, and tight ends Jeff Cumberland and Konrad Reuland until Dustin Keller (hamstring) returns?
“Tone is an elite receiver, but that doesn’t mean Chaz Schilens or Jeremy Kerley have to go out and be a Santonio Holmes,” Kerley said. “All we got to do is do the same thing we’ve been doing since Day 1.”
Will Tebow be able to engage Tom Brady — or anyone — in a shootout once Shonn Greene and Bilal Powell are Grounded and Pounded again?
“We’ve got to be able to run the football to be successful, and that’s something that hasn’t happened for us yet,” Brandon Moore said.
And it’s not as if Ryan has that pillage-and-plunder defense he swore he did. Breaking news: The Jets just missed another tackle.
“The whole issue of tackling really should never be a problem when you talk about a veteran team,” Aaron Maybin said.
And now here comes Arian Foster and the powerhouse Texans on Monday night.
“I’d much rather play Summit (N.J.) High,” Ryan said.
Based off the 49ers debacle, I would rate the Jets a three-point favorite at home in that matchup.
So, apparently, would 49ers cornerback Carlos Rogers, who accused the Jets of quitting at the end.
“There is nothing that Carlos Rogers said that I agree with,” Maybin said, “but there is nothing that I can refute that he said, based on the statistics.”
I would have expected Rex to go all Channing Crowder on Rogers and challenge him to a fight or something, but maybe the tape didn’t lie. And shame on Gang Green that it didn’t.
“I think we wore down a little bit at the end of the game, but there’s no quitting,” Ryan said.
Fatigue makes cowards of us all indeed, but wearing down means that the 49ers hammered the Jets into submission and imposed their will on them.
When Rex met his first-place-that-seems-like-last-place Jets yesterday, this was his message: “We’ve got to play New York Jet football. Regardless of what the score is, when we walk off the field at the end of games, we have to feel as though we played a game that was characteristic of our style of play.”
Rex better be a cross between Patton and Lombardi this week, and remind his Jets in no uncertain terms that they cheated their fans, and the organization, and themselves, and better no dare give anyone reason to call them quitters ever again.
“How many people are gonna feel sorry for the New York Jets? I know the answer to that — nobody. And we certainly aren’t feeling for ourselves,” Ryan said.
I don’t believe lack of pride and fight is the problem. The problem is lack of talent, and a fourth-year quarterback drowning on Sanchez Island, without a lifeline. Rex mentioned losing Kris Jenkins and Leon Washington in 2009 and making the playoffs anyway. Different time, different team, but if it gets him through the day …
“Only team in National Football League history to overcome two three-game losing streaks and make the (2009) playoffs,” Rex said.
Again, different time, different team.
“We’ve kind of had that whole us-against-the-world mentality,” Maybin said.
I’m taking the World.
steve.serby@nypost.com