FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — That hostile AFC East takeover the Jets were poised to execute against the Patriots?
That’ll have to wait for another day — maybe another decade.
As the Jets wake up this morning with a hangover, with their stunning 45-3 beat-down loss last night at Gillette Stadium still ringing in their heads, they’ll be staring up in the standings at the same team they’ve been looking up at for most of the last decade: Those damned Patriots.
Last night was supposed to be the night the Jets finally seized control of the division and perhaps home-field advantage in the playoffs.
It was supposed to be the night they would show off for a nationally televised audience the kind of team they are.
Instead, it became the most embarrassing moment of the Rex Ryan era, by far the worst defeat the Jets have suffered in the 31 games he’s coached here. In fact, it tied for the team’s sixth-worst loss ever, and was the worst beating a Ryan-coached defense has ever absorbed, period.
“The biggest butt-whipping I’ve ever taken as a coach in my career,” Ryan said. “We were outplayed and outcoached.”
These words from Ryan came after he told reporters during the week he was going to New England with the intention of kicking Bill Belichick’s butt.
“I came in to kick his butt and he kicked mine,” Ryan said. “We knew this was a big division game and we thought we would put a stranglehold on it. We could have been up one game on them and the tiebreaker. Now they’ve won one and we’ve won one.”
The Jets let Tom Brady (21-of-29, 326 yards) have his way with their defense, playing pitch-and-catch with his receivers and throwing four TD passes.
The Jets’ offense, meanwhile, was awful with Mark Sanchez (17-of-33 for 164 yards) throwing three INTs, all of which came in the second half and led to New England TDs.
To a man, everyone in the Jets locker room was humbled by the embarrassing performance.
“This humble pie tastes like a car tire and it goes down like peanut butter,” Jets defensive tackle Sione Pouha said.
“If you can draw up getting your [butt] kicked, we did it,” Jets linebacker Calvin Pace said. “This was embarrassing.”
The Jets better hope it was a fluke, because they didn’t just flop; the thud from their collective collapse could be heard from Massachusetts to Montana.
After more than 10 days of chatter about how much better they are than the Patriots, the Jets looked like pretenders last night.
Really, they looked like frauds, like the team the naysayers said was lucky to be beating the lower-tier NFL teams they’d been beating. That resiliency they prided themselves on was nowhere to be found in this game.
The Jets weren’t good on offense, defense, special teams or coaching. They were outplayed, outcoached and outclassed.
If you didn’t know the records of the two teams entering the game you’d have thought the Patriots were 9-2 and the Jets were 2-9 instead of this being a clash between two 9-2 teams, in what was one of the most anticipated regular-season NFL game in years.
The loss dropped the Jets to 9-3 and into second place behind the 10-2 Patriots.
It puts the Jets at a significant disadvantage to win their first AFC East title since 2002 — particularly with road games in Pittsburgh and Chicago remaining on their schedule. Now they’re not as much fighting for playoff seeding but for their playoff lives.
“We’re going to take this like men,” Jets linebacker Bart Scott said. “I know there will be a lot of bad things written about us and we’ll deserve it. Hopefully we’ll see these guys again and get another opportunity.”
The night began badly for the Jets and never got better. By the time the first quarter was over, they were down 17-0 and stunned. They trailed 24-3 at the half.
“I looked at the scoreboard and said, ‘Am I seeing things?’ “ Jets right tackle Damien Woody said. “It all just happened so fast. We were shell-shocked. We got hit with a haymaker. This was definitely embarrassing, but we can’t let this snowball. At the end of the day it was just one loss.”
Said Ryan: “This may feel like three losses, but it counts as one.”
mcannizzaro@nypost.com