FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Rex Ryan has suddenly been reduced to a man grasping at green-and-white straws. The braggadocio is gone. The bluster and the bravado is gone.
So there he was, in his third straight losing locker room for the first time since his rookie season, giving his Jets, no longer mortal locks to end their 43-year Super Bowl drought, the kind of speech all desperate head coaches of reeling teams gives, trying to make sure Patriots 30, Jets 21 does not leave his players emotional wrecks.
“Rex gave us a great speech of sticking together,” Darrelle Revis said.
PHOTOS: PATRIOTS BEAT JETS, 30-21
According to another player, this was the gist of the speech:
“Guys, we’ve got to stick together. We’re right there.”
Right there? Right where? They’re 2-3, two games behind the Patriots and Bills, Road Warriors no more. They’ve been exposed as blowhard bullies.
The Jets player elaborated: “What he saw tonight solidified in his mind what kind of team we are, what kind of team he thought we are, and the fact that we can do anything we want. We can march up and down the field, but we’ve got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot . . . we’re so close, that he’s optimistic about our improvement, and we’ve just got to keep on working . . . we’re really close.”
Here’s the good news: The Jets promise they are not pushing the panic button.
Here’s the bad news: The Jets, even as all parties vehemently denied a published report alleging dissatisfaction with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, acknowledge there is a panic button.
Most humiliating for Ryan is on a day when the return of Nick Mangold brought the return of Ground and Pound, his beloved defense turned into Jolly Green Midgets.
In the crunch-time moments when they needed their big players to play big in big games like this, they resembled 11 jockeys at Belmont. Incredible Shrinking Jets.
It was 27-14, Patriots, when Mark Sanchez marched his team down the field and found Santonio Holmes with a 21-yard touchdown pass that made it 27-21 with 7:14 left. A big-time defense stops the great Tom Brady right there and gets the ball back for Sanchez. Instead, Benjarvus Green-Ellis Grounded and Pounded the Jolly Green Midgets into submission, rumbling for 59 of his 136 yards rushing, helping Brady position Stephen Gostkowski for the 28-yard field goal that sealed the deal.
“We’re too good of a defense to let a team drive 60, 70 yards and then kick a game-winning field goal against us,” Jim Leonhard said. “It’s frustrating . . . we did a handful of decent things during the game but when it comes down to it, we needed a stop on that drive and we didn’t get one. So, you can almost throw out the rest of the game, and when we needed a stop, it didn’t happen.”
The killer was Green-Ellis, third-and-4 at the NYJ 46, taking a direct snap and gashing the Jolly Green Midgets for 14 yards.
“The guy ran the ball hard at the end, kind of surprised me, I thought Brady would throw it there,” Ryan said. “We did have a loaded zone over there, but he found a way to get through and get that first down.”
Sanchez wanted one more chance to win the game.
“It’s hard, you just want to get back out on the field and I know our defense is trying so hard,” he said. “Those guys are fighting. It’s not for lack of effort, that’s for sure.”
A gigantic break at the end of the first half — an Antonio Cromartie interception that would have been an Aaron Hernandez touchdown if the Pats’ tight end hadn’t had it deflect off his hands — should have sent the Jets charging from their visiting locker room. A 73-yard strike to Wes Welker against Eric Smith and Darrelle Revis at the start of the second half changed everything back for the Pats.
“It was just one of those plays where the safety was a little over-aggressive,” Welker said.
Following a successful challenge from Patriots coach Bill Belichick that Branch was down by contact two plays later at the 2 and did not fumble, it was 17-7.
“It kind of looked like one of those, ‘I got him you take hims,’ “ Ryan said.
Sanchez responded with a 9-yard TD pass to rookie Jeremy Kerley, but it wasn’t long before Brady carved up the Jolly Green Midgets at will on his way to an 11-play, 77-yard TD drive that made it 24-14.
“They’re the better team right now . . . I was encouraged though, from our team,” Ryan said.
The Ryan King no more.
steve.serby@nypost.com