FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Jets entered this season hoping they would not have to play another road playoff game this season.
If the season keeps going this way, they won’t have to worry about playoff games at all.
The Jets dropped their third straight, this one a 30-21 defeat at the hands of the hated Patriots at Gillette Stadium. At 2-3, the Jets feel like a team on the verge of crisis with an offense that can’t execute and a defense that can’t get the crucial stop.
The Patriots rolled up 446 yards on Rex Ryan’s vaunted defense, which never seemed able to get Tom Brady and Co. off the field.
PHOTOS: PATRIOTS BEAT JETS, 30-21
“We expect to be the best defense in the league,” safety Jim Leonhard said. “We expect to go to the Super Bowl. We’re far, far from that right now. We’ve hit a rough stretch. We’re doing a lot of good things, but we’re not executing well enough to win games.”
The Jets now find themselves two games behind the Patriots and the Bills in the AFC East. No one is going to mistake them as an entrant in the Andrew Luck Sweepstakes, but they look nothing like the elite team they considered themselves when the season began. It’s the first time they’ve lost three straight games since 2009.
“We’re used to winning,” said quarterback Mark Sanchez, who completed 16 of 26 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns. “We haven’t been on a skid like this, not a three-game skid in while, not since my rookie year I’m guessing (he was correct). So this is a little different territory. We’re going to see what a lot of guys are made of on this team, and it’s my job to get guys ready to play this week.”
Amid reports players are griping about play-calling, the Jets have eight days to prepare for the dismal Dolphins and try to turn their season around.
While the Patriots had some huge performances, the Jets helped them out. Ryan’s club converted just 3 of 11 first downs on offense, dropping passes or running routes just short of the first-down marker. On the flip side, the Patriots converted half (7 of 14) of their third downs. The Jets committed eight penalties, four that resulted in New England first downs.
“We’ve got to play smarter,” Ryan said. “If you make mistakes against that football team they burn you. They absolutely kill you. They don’t need any help with the offense that they have. You can’t make mistakes, and we made just enough of them to help them.”
The Jets spent all week talking about reestablishing the “Ground and Pound,” and they stuck with it. They ran the ball 25 times, despite the Patriots ranking last in the league in pass defense. Shonn Greene had 83 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries.
In the first quarter, the Jets offense looked as if it would pick up where it left off last week in Baltimore when it could do nothing. They failed to get a first down in the first quarter, and the Patriots grabbed a 10-0 lead.
The Jets finally scored in the second quarter, putting together an impressive 13-play drive punctuated by Greene’s 3-yard touchdown. On the last play of the first half, Antonio Cromartie intercepted Brady to thwart another Patriots drive.
New England wasted no time in the second half seizing the momentum. On their first play, they used play-action that Eric Smith got sucked in on, allowing Wes Welker to get behind the defense for a 73-yard catch. The Jets did a decent job bottling Welker up most of the night, but he still finished with 124 yards on five catches.
After the Patriots won a challenge that overturned what was initially ruled a fumble by Deion Branch, Brady found Branch, who lost Cromartie, for a 2-yard touchdown to make it 17-7.
Joe McKnight returned the following kickoff 88 yards to the Pats’ 20. Sanchez found Jeremy Kerley for a 9-yard score three plays later and the Jets had life, trailing by three.
The Patriots pushed the lead back to 10 points with a 11-play drive that ended with Benjarvus Green-Ellis scoring a 3-yard touchdown with 1:24 left in the third quarter. Green-Ellis had 136 yards rushing, the second back in three weeks to run for 100 or more yards against the Jets.
The Jets’ last gasp came when Sanchez found Santonio Holmes on a 21-yard touchdown pass, making it 27-21 with 7:19 left to play. But the Jets could not stop the Pats from running off a six-minute drive that finished with a 24-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal.
brian.costello@nypost.com