NFL

Jets, Dolphins trading barbs

Rex Ryan, trying his best to project a refreshed approach yesterday in the wake of the Jets’ Monday night debacle against the Dolphins, was adamant about moving on with the 1-4 Bills coming to Giants Stadium Sunday.

“That thing is in the past,” Ryan said. “We never played well. Done. End of conversation. We’re moving on.”

But the Dolphins, 31-27 winners over the Jets, were not ready to move on. They took umbrage to comments made by Jets linebacker Calvin Pace, who said he did not respect the Miami “wildcat” offense and called it “nonsense.”

JETS BLOG

PACE PUT IN PLACE BY CROWDER

The Dolphins were also incensed by some Jets, including linebacker Bart Scott, calling the wildcat a “gimmick” offense.

“They nonsensed their [butts] all the way up and down the field,” chatty Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder said yesterday in South Florida. “Nonsense? I love nonsense. They say gimmick? Gimmick this, gimmick that. We’ve won games with the wildcat. They ran two fake punts. So if you’re going to say gimmicks, those are real gimmicks.

“Wildcat is an offensive formation, they run it for two years. They have thousands of plays on film about it. Go stop it. Shut up about all the junk-talking and whatever they’re talking about they ain’t going to give us no credit. We’ll see them in three more weeks [Nov. 1]. We’ve got to play them again, so the hell with them.”

Former Jets nose tackle Jason Ferguson had a more sarcastic response to Pace’s comments.

“What did Calvin Pace say?” Ferguson said. “Wow, really? Who is this guy? What’s his name again? Ain’t he a rookie or something? Isn’t that the rookie from Ohio State? Or you talking about the guy from Arizona?

“Yeah, OK, it’s cool, if that’s what he sees. It ain’t nothing. That’s how ya’ll want to treat it, it’s cool. You’ll see it again in two weeks. No comments here. I’m good. I’ll stay away from that one. He’s fooling himself. I got nothing for Calvin. I don’t even know that dude. I’ll let him have his battle with the wildcat. It looks like he lost already.”

Not including three plays in the fourth quarter when rookie Pat White came into the game, the Dolphins ran 16 plays out of the wildcat and gained 112 yards — 91 on 14 carries and 21 on a pass completion.

Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown, who ran six times for 32 yards out of formation and threw the 21-yard pass, said of Pace, “He has his own opinion and the biggest comment on that is we’re all afraid of what we do not understand. I guess that’s the situation there. It works for us. We enjoy it. We do it. It’s part of our package. We’re not going out to try to change it because a guy isn’t happy about what we’re doing.

“Coming into the game we’re watching how they blitz and we were like, ‘OK, we’ll just sit back and play football then, and let’s see who has the tougher 11 people on the field.’ ”

Dolphins guard Justin Smiley, taking a more diplomatic approach, sounded as if he was biting his tongue when asked about Pace’s comments.

“I have a lot of respect for Calvin Pace because I think he’s a heck of a football player,” Smiley said. “But the one thing I am going to say is we have game upon games of game film to watch. People know what we run.

“We’re not running Statue of Liberties out of wildcat. We’re running base and power. You have to stop it. You have to stop it, and until you stop it, nothing’s going to change.”

Pace was asked yesterday if he “regretted” making those comments.

“That’s how I feel,” he said. “When you play defense, you would love to have someone just come out and run conventional stuff. I said some things and I definitely should have thought about it and re-phrased it a little bit.

“I respect the Dolphins. They beat us. It’s not like they went out there and stole the game from us. They were efficient. They ran the ball and they made plays when they had to. I tip my hat to them. But we’ve got another chance to play them and hopefully the outcome is going to be different.”

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com