The cruel Jets joke is getting on fans' nerves again after the outrageous loss that wiped out their season

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The Jets are such a cruel joke, it's not even funny.

And the joke is once again on her fans.

Remember all those Super Bowl dreams that mushroomed when Aaron Rodgers arrived as the so-called savior?

Forget her.

They lay shattered on the floor at Gillette Stadium at the Patriots 25 and the Jets 22.

That came after Jacoby Brissett was forced into action when Drake Maye left with a head injury in the first half, magically morphing into Jacoby Brady and putting his team in position for Rhamondre Stevenson's 1-yard TD run with 22 seconds left brought.

“This is a moment of darkness,” interim coach Jeff Ulbrich said.

And to think, Rodgers thought he had emerged from the darkness.

“Yeah, I was in the dark,” Rodgers said. “You have to go in there and make peace with it.”

Another date that will live on in the Jets' infamy.

Rodgers might as well have started singing, “Hello darkness, my old friend, come back to talk to you.”

Rodgers, locked in a dark retreat with a franchise that never sees the light.

And maybe not again for years.

Another punch in the solar plexus, compliments to your New York Jets.

Remember when Woody Johnson fired Robert Saleh because he was sure that promoting Ulbrich would ignite a spark in one of the best rosters the owner had ever seen?

Remember all the hubbub surrounding Davante Adams' postgame speech in Pittsburgh and the impact that would have on the culture? Adams and Garrett Wilson catching darts from Aaron Rodgers? Are you kidding me? Dare to stop us.

“If we don’t score 30 points,” Rodgers said, “we’re going to be underperforming.” This offense can do that every week.”

Except they don't score 30 points. They are underperforming. They didn't score more than 24 points all year.

Remember how Haason Reddick (26 snaps, two pressures) would wreak havoc in his long-awaited Jets debut?

Mice and Woody's best-laid plans go awry again.

A 2-6 disgrace of a football “team” with a group of experienced independent contractors and an interim head coach whose boss also serves as defensive coordinator and a kicker who once again betrayed the trust placed in him with a missed PAT far left and misses a 44-yard FG wide left.

When the game was on the line, it wasn't Jerod Mayo's defense that was weak. It was Ulbrich's defense, previously Saleh's defense.

“I’m angry,” Ulbrich said. “You are angry. I'm hurt. You’re hurt.”

He can't possibly imagine how Jets fans feel.

And a delay of game penalty before a two-point conversion after Rodgers (17-28, 233 yards, 2 TDs, INTs) gave the Jets a 2:22-17 lead with a 10-play, 70-yard drive had brought: 57 left.

“Well, they start the clock at 8 p.m., and we had a shift and a motion, and when it came down to it, the defense they played wasn't good for the play called,” Rodgers said. “I thought, let’s just move it back to 7; not that big of a difference. I liked the play we called, but they didn't apply any pressure at all and I guessed wrong; You guessed right.”

A very bad time to guess wrong. His two-point conversion pass to Mike Williams failed.

In the third quarter: Ulbrich, a good man who deserves better, decided to trust Greg (The Crazy Leg) Zuerlein with a 29-yard field goal to secure a 16-14 lead while beating Rodgers & Co. could have trusted in the fourth quarter. and-1 at the Patriots 11.

“I always support ‘Brich,” Rodgers said.

In the first quarter: Rodgers used all three of his timeouts with 1:31 left. “Our operations have been a little slow at times,” Rodgers said.

Remember how the Jets were prepared to end the Bills' four-year stranglehold over the division?

Do you remember what this year was going to be like? The year the Aaron Rodgers Jets would end their 13-year playoff drought? And if the football gods could somehow allow it, Rodgers would have a chance to be Broadway Joe Namath, and the Lombardi Trophy that sits so lonely at the Atlantic Health Training Center might have company.

There was a time when the Jets would have celebrated tying with the Patriots. Just not in the AFC basement.

“The NFL is tough,” Rodgers said. “It's hard to win. More difficult when you make it difficult for yourself.”

If you can't cope with adversity, you make things difficult for yourself. Remember how Bill Belichick made the Jets quarterbacks see ghosts? The Jets performed Sunday as if they had seen the ghost of Belichick.

This was such a heinous loss that the Jets didn't deserve to use the Yankees as cover in the World Series.

But the energy, that fleeting energy, it was there.

“What we failed to do was execute, especially in the critical moments of this game,” Ulbrich said.

In 1976, 0-14 expansion Buccaneers head coach John McKay was credited with a quote that he may or may not have said. When asked what he thought of his team's implementation: “I'm in favor of it.”

How many Jets fans would support that sentiment today?