Aaron Rodgers knows the darkness well. But can he free the Jets from their final spell?

Jeff Ulbrich knew his audience.

The New York Jets interim coach knew that darkness was more than just a metaphor for the quarterback on whose shoulders the franchise rested.

After the Jets' fifth defeat in a row, Ulbrich focused on the pictures.

His message to a team that blew a hugely winnable divisional game against the New England Patriots?

“This is a moment of darkness,” Ulbrich said in his locker room after the rebuilding Patriots beat them 25-22. “And we understand that the outside world is going to be really loud now. But the only thing I know in life is that you work when things get dark and hard. And you point the finger at yourself and look within and figure out what I can do better.”

Rodgers is comfortable with the darkness in a way that perhaps no one else in the league is.

The four-time MVP famously spent four nights in complete darkness in 2023 as he contemplated retirement. Rather than call it quits, Rodgers instead left his meditative retreat to facilitate his move from the Green Bay Packers to the Jets.

Rodgers' final emergence from literal darkness gave the Jets a strong glimmer of hope. But can he find that strength again after the Jets fell to last place in the AFC East on Sunday?

But as the New York offense struggles to even get into the starting lineup without penalties and delays in the game, and the Jets' defense struggles to stop the run while special teams miss shots every week, Rodgers can then muster the strength to power the Jets again to get going?

With the shadow of his hat conveniently shrouding his eyes in darkness during his postgame press conference, Rodgers believed it.

“I was in the dark,” he said. “You have to go in there. Make peace with it.”

The Jets' loss to the struggling Patriots spelled trouble for more than a week

What would peace in darkness look like for Rodgers?

The quarterback took advantage of Ulbrich's command to point the finger at himself more than others.

“Offensively, our goal has to be: Just score 30 points,” Rodgers said after a day that included 17 of 28 for 233 yards and two touchdowns. “It doesn’t matter what the other sides do. We have confidence in our defense and our (special) teams, but if we don't score 30 points, we're underperforming.

“This offense can do that every week.”

Rodgers' words echoed team owner Woody Johnson's assertion when he fired head coach Robert Saleh on Oct. 8, insisting that this was the best Jets squad he had assembled and that it would therefore be better than 2-3 must.

Since then, the Jets have continued to strengthen both sides of the ball, trading for receiver Davante Adams and reaching a contract agreement with holdout edge rusher Hassan Reddick.

No matter – they have now lost five straight, including three after Saleh's firing, two to Adams and one to Reddick.

And the Jets haven't reached Rodgers' 30-point threshold once in eight attempts.

Their 22 points on Sunday were the most since they scored 24 points against the Patriots five weeks earlier, a mark that is still below the Patriots' 25 points allowed per game.

And while a missed 44-yard field goal and a missed extra point attempt hurt the Jets in that loss, so too did ongoing disruption. The Jets took advantage of their first-half timeouts before the start of the second quarter and also committed five of their eight penalties in the first half.

“One of them we got out of the scrum late, one of them I was trying to get the right protection, one I felt like we could have gotten through but it was OK to get there (a timeout ) to take,” said Rodgers. “Our operations were a little slow at times.”

The operational lethargy would affect the Jets again in the fourth quarter when they suffered another delay of game on a 2-point conversion attempt after scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 2:57 to play. The 5-yard penalty more than tripled the 2 yards the play would have required. The failed play meant the Patriots needed a touchdown, but not an extra point attempt, to win.

In the end, the Patriots got both, as the Jets' defense followed the lead of their offense and faltered.

Rodgers defended the decision but accepted the consequences.

“They start at 8 p.m. and we had one shift and one application,” Rodgers said. “When it came down to it, the defense they were playing was no longer good for the play they were calling. So I thought let's just reset it to the 7, not too much of a difference. I like the game we called, but they didn't apply any pressure.

“And I guessed wrong, they guessed right.”

Jets have quick turnaround before Texans arrive

The Jets will have a chance to cleanse their palate as early as Thursday. But they will have to do so against a 6-2 Houston Texans team whose quarterback is 18 years younger in the NFL but is currently more productive.

The Texans' offense was shakier than last season, when CJ Stroud earned Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. But Houston's defense ranked second in yards allowed and 11th in points allowed this week.

Against the same Patriots team that had just defeated the Jets, the Texans won 41-21 two weeks ago. That Patriots team had starting quarterback Drake Maye for four quarters; The Jets faced him for just 16 minutes before he was evaluated and then ruled out due to a concussion.

Ulbrich, who described himself and the team as “angry” and “hurt,” emphasized how important it was to clean up the game and act more consistently.

“In critical moments we are not efficient, especially not in the home stretch,” said Ulbrich. “We say that we are not like that. But we will stay like this until we prove otherwise.”

Ulbrich expressed his confidence in the Jets' ability to turn things around and his confidence in the team's ability to emerge from the darkness like they and Rodgers had done before.

The team will lean on bright spots like Rodgers and Garrett Wilson's best game of the season, with defenses focusing on Adams. The Jets' defense allowed fewer yards than in six weeks, but New York also allowed an undermanned group to convert on 7 of 15 third-down attempts and three of four trips to the red zone.

Ulbrich said he would “take a close look at everything,” including the kicker’s best forward plan after Greg Zuerlein’s sixth missed field goal of the season.

Hard work and responsibility are the Jets' ticket out of darkness, Ulbrich said.

“If we do this together, which I believe we will do, this is your only chance to get out of this situation,” Ulbrich said. “This is your only chance to improve and fix some of these mistakes. We're lucky there.

“The character of this locker room will reflect who we are.”