NFL

Rex must bring Jets together

And on the day after, there were tears.

No, they were not the tears of the clown who wears No. 10 in a Jets uniform and serves as the poster child for everything wrong with this year’s team.

The tears came from the bold head coach always armed with the bodacious predictions.

The day after the Jets’ season ended ignominiously Sunday in Miami, Rex Ryan stood humbly before his players and offered this plea: We must become one again.

According to those in the room, Ryan “pleaded’’ for a return of team unity, something that was once a strength and turned into a weakness this year — low-lighted by Santonio Holmes, No. 10 in your program and a team captain, quitting on his team.

Ryan got so passionate in his final meeting with his players yesterday morning that he worked himself into tears.

“I’m Irish,’’ he said later, trying to make light of his emotions yet looking more serious and somber than he usually does. “It’s hurtful. I’m extremely prideful. I want to be the best. I want to win. Sometimes it comes out like that.’’

Ryan realized what came out of this dysfunctional season is the fact that he lost his team, and that is the most damning condemnation of all for a head coach in any sport.

“Normally, I’m a guy that really has the pulse of his team,’’ Ryan said. “I don’t think I had the pulse of our team the way I [have] in the past. When I met with players [yesterday], that became clear to me.’’

Rex’s Jets have been the darlings of the dance the last two Januarys, making unexpected runs to consecutive AFC Championship games and, despite not having the pedigree of the league’s so-called elite, threatening to crash the Super Bowl party.

Now, in Ryan’s third year, a season before which he declared that this was the most talented team he has had yet, the Jets are the scourges of the league — bickering underachievers.

The sight of Holmes, looking like a petulant teenager sulking by himself with his helmet off on the bench, not paying a lick of attention while his teammates fought desperately to keep their playoff hopes alive, stands as the lasting image to this season for the Jets.

There were other classless images around the locker room yesterday, such as Bart Scott giving a Post photographer the finger and spewing profanity as he walked out of the room.

Holmes made a brief in-and-out appearance and showed more burst and separation while scurrying away from reporters than he showed all game against Miami cornerback Vontae Davis on Sunday.

Yes, there’s much to be repaired by Ryan, who’s basked in a two-year honeymoon while making an art of pushing all of his chips to the middle of the table while playing and winning with the house’s money.

Now, after his team lost its last three games and looked progressively worse doing so, questions arise about Ryan’s unorthodox methods since the very foundation on which he had built his success — team unity — are the things that caused their 2011 downfall.

There were more than a few players in the locker room yesterday who pointed to the poor team chemistry as the issue that poisoned them this year.

“We need to pull together as a team, be brothers, work for each other, play for each other,’’ left guard Matt Slauson said. “There were a lot of guys who were just playing for themselves, because we haven’t been a team all year long.’’

Ryan vowed to change that.

“In my talk to the team what I said was from the heart, and we will have that team, because that’s how you win in this league,’’ Ryan said. “Every team has got talent. What separates from winning and losing is a team that truly believes in each other and cares about each other. We’re going to have 53 people that believe that way.’’