And now that the Jets are dead, it’s time to begin where too many Jets seasons seem to end: with second guesses and prescriptions for better luck in the future.

Getting Favre was the right move. In a results-oriented town like New York, the risks that pay off are branded “genius” while those that don’t are castigated. But if yesterday marked Brett Favre’s final game in a Jets uniform, then the decision to bring him here deserves a fairer consideration than it figures to receive.

Four and a half months ago, the Jets had a unique opportunity to replace a brittle, underperforming player with the foremost quarterback of his generation. It was a move that the Jets had to make. They had gone to war with Pennington for six seasons, and they had two playoff wins to show for it. It wasn’t good enough. Everyone acknowledged that—even Pennington. So after a dismal 2007 campaign that saw him bothered by yet another debilitating injury, Pennington had worn out his welcome here. It was simply time to go, and the opportunity to land Favre merely underscored the need to move on. That Pennington has gone on to outperform Favre this year is largely irrelevant.

What he’s done in Miami is no indication of what he would have done in New York. And if any Jets fans find themselves wondering what would have become of this season had the Jets kept Pennington, they need only look at the last six years to have their answer. Last year, Pennington played terribly as captain of an offense with far more talent than the group with which he has enjoyed so much success in Miami.

Even now, with the Jets dead and the Dolphins preparing for a home playoff game, the Jets offensive personnel are clearly superior to that in place for the Dolphins. Were the two teams combined, it seems a fair bet that Jerricho Cotchery and Laveranues Coles would start at wide receiver; Thomas Jones, at running back; Dustin Keller, at tight end.

That Pennington has flourished with also-rans after failing with relative stars is a glaring indictment of the coaching staff; there’s simply no other way around it. Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer has gotten less out of more than perhaps any other coordinator in football. He had two good receivers, two Pro Bowl running backs, two Pro Bowl offensive linemen, an excellent young tight end and a Hall of Fame quarterback. There’s simply no excuse for what has happened this year. Suggestions that Favre was somehow too old to make it work are nonsense; you don’t throw six touchdown passes in a game, beat the Patriots in New England or destroy a 10-0 team on its home field if you don’t have it physically. It just didn’t work out. And for that, the coach is to blame.

The Jets organization was right to bid adieu to Mangini shortly after the loss to Miami. The team fans witnessed over the last five weeks was not simply bad; it was out of control, even somewhat disinterested at times.

For some reason that may never be known, Eric Mangini lost this team after a landmark win in Tennessee, and he never got it back. What’s worse, he never tried. Coordinators Bob Sutton and Brian Schottenheimer needed to be shown the door after a humiliating road loss to the 49ers that saw the Jets fall to 8-5. They had lost two in a row by 10 points or more, and it was plain to everyone that Sutton and Schottenheimer were not getting through to their respective units.

Perhaps it would have been impractical to fire both, but certainly at least one—particularly Sutton—ought to have been shown the door. After all, Eric Mangini’s pedigree was in defense. Further, his specialty lay in coaching the secondary, where the Jets were experiencing their greatest problems. It seemed a fairly small leap to suggest that he could replace Sutton without a hitch. If nothing else, a change would have sent a message, putting the team on notice that there was a consequence for failure.

Instead, Mangini did nothing. He was content simply to repeat his tiresome rhetoric about consistency and execution. Now he's gone, and his trust in those around him was his undoing.

Doubtless, Schottenheimer and Sutton were underqualified for their positions and never should have been hired in the first place, but that alone did not doom the Jets. In the end, it was Mangini’s failure to place his own stamp on this team that has caused his failure in New York. An NFL season is long and fraught with many unforeseen twists. It calls not only for a calculating tactician but also for a pragmatist, for adaptation, for a coach who can adjust in midstream to address the many different challenges that inevitably arise over the course of five months. Instead, Mangini has been too heavily invested in his own propaganda to make the changes that had to be made to save the Jets.

Credit GM Mike Tannenbaum. The ax that fell on Mangini should spare Tannenbaum, whose offseason moves and deft management of the salary cap gave the Jets a chance to win in 2008. A year ago at this time, as the Jets had just completed a horrific 4-12 season. By all appearances, the team was in store for yet another rebuilding process. Tannenbaum charted a daring course through free agency while engineering several high-profile trades, including the acquisition of Kris Jenkins and Brett Favre. It was a perilous route to be certain and one that few would have taken. The moves worked. They catapulted the Jets from doormats to contenders.

Say goodbye to Favre. Watching Brett Favre in a Jets uniform has been a great thrill for many fans. But as is the case with Mangini, it’s time to move on. Although Favre could probably play another season or two in the right circumstances, it seems doubtful that he’d be willing to learn yet another offense in the likely event that Schottenheimer is fired. As has been so well documented over the course of this season, Favre is not keen on changing systems, and if the Jets’ offensive system needs anything, it’s change. Schottenheimer’s San Diego system has been a disaster. The quarterbacks who have left it, whether it’s Drew Brees or Chad Pennington, have gone on to perform far better in other places. Besides, Favre will turn 40 next season, and if offseason tests reveal the existence of any damage to his throwing shoulder, his most famous asset may well become a thing of the past.

The Jets have two young quarterbacks in Kellen Clemens and Brett Ratliff. Clemens has been underwhelming in his brief stints as the starter, but he’s still just 25 years old. Moreover, it’s worth noting that Drew Brees’ first two years under Schottenehimer’s tutelage saw him manage 28 touchdowns to 31 interceptions en route to being labeled a draft bust. The Jets also have 23-year-old Brett Ratliff, whose considerable size and cannon arm played to rave reviews in the preseason.

It’s time to move on. Again.

The blame game will doubtless start with an overanalysis of yesterday's humiliating loss to a 3-11 Seattle Seahawks team so ravaged by injury that it was without either its starting quarterback or a single starter on the offensive line. There will be talk of bad calls, missed opportunities, the decision to kick a field goal on fourth down and one from the Seahawks' two-yard line on the game's opening drive, to punt after a five-yard penalty negated a 45-yard Jay Feely kick early in the fourth quarter, the decision to go for it on fourth down and four from their own 20 with 2:21 remaining in the game, and, of course, the Jets' continuing inability to win on the West Coast. These are red herrings. The truth is that the Jets' implosion has had relatively little to do with yesterday's mail-in performance against the Seahawks. This self-destruction has been weeks in the making.

Their wins at New England and Tennessee conclusively established that the Jets have the talent to beat any team in the league. Seven pro-bowl nominations seconded the proposition. But for over a month, the Jets have been sabotaged from within, being glaringly out-coached in nearly every facet of the game. And for over a month, Eric Mangini has been unable or unwilling to stem the tide, choosing instead to stand behind coordinators Brian Schottenheimer and Bob Sutton, both of whom have extracted precious little from relatively talent-laden squads. Their game plans have given the team no strategic advantage in the first half of games, and their halftime adjustments, if there have been any, have changed nothing. More bad run defense, more bad pass defense, more inane, self-defeating offensive play-calling.

As a result, the Jets have been tanking for four weeks. They are 1-3 in their last four games, and only a miraculous end to last week's near-disaster against the Bills has saved them from being 0-4 since their landmark win against the Titans. Four consecutive weeks of pitiful, eerily similar football.

And all the while, Eric Mangini has taken exquisite pains to betray no sense of alarm or urgency. As has been his wont since day one, he has remained the very picture of outward calm, tirelessly repeating his ever-familiar mantra about avoiding mistakes and moving forward. To witness his manicured media persona is to think him as always in control, never given to the whims and folly that mark the behavior of many other coaches around the league. But the bottom line belies the façade. He has fiddled while the Jets have burned.

Mangini had a chance to fix the problem weeks ago, when it first appeared that the Jets were headed downhill and when it became obvious that neither Schottenheimer nor Sutton was capable of righting this ship. The Jets' loss to the Broncos following their win in Tennessee was excusable as losses go. It was a poorly played game to be certain, both familiar for the Jets mind-numbing inability to defend against the pass and novel for their sudden inability to rush the passer or stop the run. But above all, it was a classic letdown: something familiar if not altogether acceptable. But their follow-up loss to a terrible 49ers team in San Francisco ought to have sounded an alarm. And if the Jets are left with their hands pressed up against the playoff glass a week from now, it will be that game and the week that followed that sealed their fate.

The ugly loss in San Francisco bespoke a foundering team in desperate need of a second wind. It was not only high time for a change; it was Eric Mangini's golden opportunity to place his unique stamp on this team and thereby escape, once and for all, the titanic shadow of Bill Belichick and the several scandals that had linked the two men since Mangini moved south. Certainly, after two horrendous performances against the Broncos and 49ers, at least one of the coordinators ought to have been fired.

In fairness, replacing Schottenheimer, although necessary, would have been difficult because the Jets appeared to lack any obvious alternative. But what excuse for failing to act on defense, where Bob Sutton had shown himself to be far out of his depth? After all, Eric Mangini came here with a nearly unmatched defensive pedigree. For ten years, he was groomed by perhaps the foremost defensive thinker in pro- football history. He brought the 3-4 defense to the Jets. He knew it better than anyone this side of Foxborough. He could have stepped in to coach the defense at any time. And yet he was content to stand by and allow Sutton to run the ship aground.

Although there's no guarantee that firing Sutton or Schottenheimer would have proved a sudden cure for the Jets' ills, it would have been superior to the alternative, as subsequent weeks have borne out. Doing nothing was not merely a mistake; it was an egregious error owing more to stubbornness and ego than to strategic calculation. Even if Mangini were truly dumbfounded by the Jets' downward turn, he had to know that Sutton was not getting through to the defense. That alone warranted his ouster. Now, of course, it's too late. The Jets have spun wildly out of control, and there are no firings or hirings that will save this season. The time for that is past.

For some reason, perhaps unknowable, Eric Mangini could not depart from his own orthodoxy. He became too rigid, too married to his system, too doctrinaire to make the pragmatic changes necessary to save the Jets. And if the Jets find themselves at home after next week's game against the Dolphins, owner Woody Johnson will hard-pressed for reasons to bring Mangini back. To date, the Mangini regime has been less modeled on Bill Belichick's reign in New England than on Belichick's much-maligned tenure in Cleveland, where his gruff manner and staunch unwillingness to acknowledge errors soon left him on the NFL scrap heap. If only in this respect, Mangini appears a good bet to follow in the footsteps of his celebrated boss.   

Now Eric Mangini may very well have just one more week to get this right. And sadly, even a virtuoso performance against the Dolphins may not be enough to save either his team or his job.

But not here. And not for the Jets, whose agonizing 24-14 loss to a 4-8 49er team yesterday in San Francisco leaves many questions but yields one conclusion: They’re one of the worst-coached teams in the league. Of course, neither that nor the full extent of their other problems figures to see the light of day during any of the Pravda-style press conferences sure to follow this week in Florham Park, but it’s true just the same. And it needs to change.

Football, difficult though it may be, is not rocket science, and the game has been around long enough that true innovation is almost nonexistent. What happens on Sunday around the league has been done before, seen before, and stopped before.

And yet, because every team is outcoached on occasion, the temptation will be to overlook yesterday’s manifest coaching failure in San Francisco, to dismiss it as an aberration. Problem is, it’s becoming more than an anomaly. It’s now obvious even to less astute observers, and it has to be particularly galling for a Jets franchise that went to New England three years ago to recruit Eric Mangini, the football equivalent of the son of Solomon. He was the boy-faced man who had served as prized protégé to the greatest football coach in the world, Bill Belichick. For 10 years, Mangini had watched him; venerated him; emulated him--all in the hope of becoming the next Bill Belichick. The Jets had taken notice, too, and when they tapped him as the 14th head coach in franchise history, it was in the hope and belief that he stood the greatest chance of any candidate to become the next Belichick or at least something close. To date, it hasn’t quite worked out that way.

And if that wasn’t clear previously, it was rammed home yesterday afternoon in San Francisco, where the Jets were thoroughly outclassed not by the genius of Bill Belichick or even the offensive mastery of Mike Shanahan but by interim head coach Mike Singletary, whose brief coaching tenure in San Francisco has been marked chiefly by a his attempt to seize the attention of his players by spontaneously pulling his pants down during a team meeting. These are the depths to which the team has fallen not two weeks after beating the Tennessee Titans in arguably the best regular-season win in franchise history.

The fault is not all Mangini’s. The two main culprits are familiar faces in their own right: coordinators Brian Schottenheimer and Bob Sutton. More than any other mistake, it’s been Mangini’s reliance on the league’s good old boy network that has been his undoing.

In truth, neither Schottenheimer nor Sutton has any business being an NFL coordinator. Schottenheimer is here because he has the right last name; Sutton, because he bears the imprimatur of Bill Parcells--the equivalent of three Michelin stars in the close-knit coaching ranks of the NFL. But with each passing game, it becomes clearer that both are better suited to being position coaches under a qualified coordinator and neither is up to the task of matching up with the better offensive and defensive minds around the league.

Schottenheimer has somehow managed to pair Brett Favre with two highly talented receivers and still come away with one of the more anemic passing attacks in the league. Add his often bizarre, self-defeating play-calling, typified by a plethora of third-and-short passing plays, wide-receiver screens designed to get three yards, and an assortment of high-risk, low-reward trickery, and you have yourself a competitive disadvantage of increasing significance.

In fairness, the Jets have scored plenty of points on the whole, but looking at both the players and the play-calling, it seems plain that this has more to do with personnel than with Schottenheimer. After sitting through yet another mess yesterday afternoon, one can’t help but wonder how many more points they would have scored with a top-shelf coordinator.

Bob Sutton presents an even clear case than Schottenheimer, who, as noted above, at least has the saving grace of heading a team ranked near the top in points scored. In a town infamous for its result-oriented approach to all things, Bob Sutton seems an unlikely candidate to continue much longer as defensive coordinator. After 14 weeks and 13 games, Sutton’s defense remains palpably clueless in pass coverage, repeating familiar mistakes and showing no apparent signs of progress.

Yesterday afternoon proved merely an extension of the misadventure, as the Jets were shredded through the air by a 49ers offense composed largely of castoffs, retreads, has-beens, and draft busts. Their lone star, running back Frank Gore, left the game for good early in the second half with a sprained ankle, but it wouldn’t matter. The Jets allowed 49er quarterback Shaun Hill, who had managed to appear in all of four games over the past six seasons, to complete 72 percent of his passes for 285 yards and two touchdowns.

Time and again, the Jets were duped by the same shifts and close formations that Brian Schottenheimer had used to marginal success over the past two seasons. Doubtless, Sutton had seen similar formations in practice in 2006 and 2007, yet neither he nor his players appeared even remotely able to diagnose the problem, let alone solve it. They were as clueless in the fourth quarter as they were in the first. In fact, it soon became so glaring that even CBS commentator Phil Simms, never one to heap undue embarrassment on players or coaches, was forced to acknowledge the disarray, noting that the Jets were so confused as to their coverage assignments that two players often wound up inadvertently covering the same receiver, thereby leaving another player wide open.

This kind of nonsense would be intolerable under any circumstance, but the considerable talent in evidence on this defense makes it a travesty. The Jets have a formidable front seven, and even their comparatively weak secondary is home to cornerback Darrelle Revis and safety Kerry Rhodes, both of whom are likely among the league’s top 10 players at their respective positions. The presence of Revis alone ought to be sufficient to shut down one half of the field. Add the fact that the Jets’ stout run defense enables them to consistently force third and long, and it seems even more likely that they should excel in pass defense. There is simply no excuse for their continuing inability to stop even the most mediocre passing offenses.

The time has come to make a change. Not next week. Not next season. Not after it’s too late. The time to make the change is now. It’s high time that Eric Mangini dispense with his Potemkin Village and admit what is already plain to all: This defense stinks, and it won’t leave the Jets with so much as a snowball’s chance in hell come playoff time unless affirmative action is taken now.

Sutton needs to go. He was hired in the first place largely because of his ties to Bill Parcells, and he has failed to distinguish himself during his tenure. It’s time for Eric Mangini to stop hoping that his affected air of calm will continue to be mistaken for competence. It’s time for Eric Mangini to put his stamp on this football team.

Certainly, no one knows this defense any better than Mangini, who served not only as coordinator but also defensive backs coach in New England. He can fix this. He must fix this. The season depends on it.

That speculation was wrong.

And if that much were not apparent before last night’s stunning, season-altering 34-31 overtime win against the New England Patriots in Foxborough, then it ought to have been apparent afterward. Favre played his best, most complete game of the season, helping stake the Jets to a 24-6 lead in the first half and then rallying the team twice thereafter, once late in the fourth quarter to cap a seven-minute drive with a go-ahead touchdown and a 31-24 lead and then, most spectacularly, in overtime to win the game on the strength of Jay Feely’s 32-yard field goal.

And that’s why you get Brett Favre. You get Brett Favre because he never gives up on a game, because he never gives up on his teammates, and most importantly, because he never lets his teammates give up on themselves. He simply will not allow it. He is, above all else, a winner: a rare and worthy distinction in itself but absolutely imperative for a team whose history, fraught with bizarre, increasingly inventive failure, presides like a green-speckled albatross atop every stadium in which the Jets play.

By all appearances, Favre is not troubled in the least by what’s happened here and has little interest in having it recounted to him. So far as he’s concerned, the Bates Motel is actually a charming fixer-upper with untapped potential for expansion, brand enhancement, and future revenue growth. Favre is not scared of the Jets, and it shows. Indeed, if New York fans and national media outlets have seemed more troubled by Favre’s interceptions than Favre, himself, it’s because they are: Favre is not now--and never has been--particularly concerned with interceptions. They roll off his conscience like water off a duck’s back. He is unfazed by mistakes because he regards himself as an aggressor, as the one to be feared, not as a victim waiting to be devoured. Whereas the Jets have spent the better part of the last 40 years trying not to lose, Favre has spent his career trying to win. And their divergent results tell the tale.

Favre rescued the Jets from the Patriots, from themselves, and even from head coach Eric Mangini. But as is so often the case in sports, it is the destination, not the journey, that wins the greatest notice. And so the many trials and tribulations, some of which very nearly cost the Jets this landmark win, shall soon be forgotten, cast aside and forever obscured by the fact of victory. It is, after all, the prevailing tendency among players and fans alike to regard both wins and losses as absolute and unqualified, to find neither mitigation in defeat nor caveat in victory.

But this rule is more rightly honored in the breach. The unvarnished truth, swept away by Brett Favre and the right leg of Jay Feely, is that the Jets nearly lost this game through a series of glaring tactical errors, almost all of which were the product of the same fear-based conservatism that has marked this franchise for decades.

It began late in the first half. After Brett Favre hooked up with wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery on a 15-yard touchdown strike to push the Jets out to a 24-6 with 5:06 remaining in the second quarter, the defense quickly stopped the Patriots at their own 23 and forced a punt. The Jets took over on their own 30 with 2:33 remaining and two timeouts left. In front of them was a visibly tired, emotionally reeling Patriots defense. Rather than continue along the same course that saw his team amass an almost-surreal lead, Eric Mangini elected to sit on the football, allowing the clock to run down to the two-minute warning after Thomas Jones carried for one yard on first down. And after Favre missed Jerricho Cotchery on the next play, the Jets were flagged for a delay-of-game penalty, whose effect was to convert a makeable third and nine opportunity to a nearly impossible third and 14.

Predictably, the Jets ran the ball on third and long, failing to pick up the first down. Even more predictably, the Patriots took the ensuing possession and scored a touchdown to cut the lead to 26-13 with 20 seconds remaining in the half. The Jets had lost both their momentum and their mental edge, neither of which they would recapture until the very second that Feely’s kick sailed through the uprights in overtime.

Following a halftime that once again saw Mangini outcoached by the Machiavellian schemes of Bill Belichick, the Jets were on their heels. And after the Patriots scored a touchdown and two-point conversion in the waning seconds of the third quarter to cut the lead to 24-21, things seemed to be devolving into the same kind of debacle on which the Jets have been the league’s leading authority. But when Stephen Gostkowski connected on a 48-yard field goal with 10:22 left in the fourth quarter, things began to look especially dire.

To his everlasting credit, Favre would answer Gostkowski by leading the Jets on a methodical 14-play. 67-yard drive that would be capped by a one-yard Thomas Jones touchdown run and a 31-24 lead with 3:14 remaining in the game. The defense then forced three and out, and the Jets took over once again with just 2:33 remaining and victory near at hand. After Thomas Jones collected eight yards on two carries, the Jets faced a third down and two as the two-minute warning struck. The Patriots were out of timeouts. If the Jets were to secure a first down, the game would be over. But instead of entrusting the matter to Favre on a night when no Patriot defender had gotten even close to any of his passes, the Jets ran the ball, the apparent logic being that an incomplete pass would stop the clock, whereas even a failed run would cost the Patriots an additional 45 seconds.

Thomas Jones was stopped cold on third and two, and the Jets punted to the Patriots, who took over on their own 38 with 1:04 remaining and no timeouts left. It was then and there that Mangini nearly drove a stake through the Jets. Instead, of forcing Cassel to make difficult throws in a pressure situation, Mangini fell back into a prevent defense that could have been just as easily accomplished had the team remained in the sidelines. They allowed Cassel to go 5-5 for 67 yards, the last 14 of which were picked up on a touchdown pass to Randy Moss, who beat newly reacquired cornerback Ty Law along the sideline and sent the game to overtime.

Luckily, the Jets won the midfield toss. And luckily, they had Brett Favre, who, after being sacked on the first play of overtime and missing a pass to running back Leon Washington on second down, stepped up to deliver the ball that may very well have saved the Jets’ season. On third and 15 from his own 20, Favre dropped back and fired a bullet along the right sideline for tight end Dustin Keller, who made the catch and then dived across the first-down marker. A series of short runs and passes followed, and ten plays later, Feely stroked a 32-yard field goal that sneaked through the left upright and left the Jets winners.

Now at 7-3, the Jets are in prime position to win the AFC East and secure the second seed in the conference playoff alignment. In fact, they still have an outside chance to capture the No. 1 seed and, by extension, homefield advantage throughout the duration of the playoffs. In this respect, their win at Foxborough will begin to pay dividends almost immediately, as the Jets prepare to take on the conference-leading Tennessee Titans next week in Nashville. With their week 11 game already in the books, the Jets will now likely enjoy several days off in what will amount to a sort of mini-bye.

Meanwhile, the coaching staff will now have three extra days in which to study, scrutinize, and otherwise assess the Titans’ tendencies over their impressive, league-leading 9-0 start. The truth is that the Jets would have been an ideal candidate to hand the Titans their first loss anyway. In the age of parity, wherein individual matchups and smart gameplans often exert more influence over a particular outcome than broad talent disparities, the Jets appear to have an enviable angle on the Titans, who run the ball exceedingly well but have struggled to develop anything even remotely approximating a consistent passing attack with quarterback Kerry Collins.

The Jets, of course, have assembled a stalwart run defense but continue to struggle mightily to defend against the pass, as demonstrated conclusively and embarrassingly by last night’s 400-yard performance from Patriots starter, Matt Cassel. If the Jets can slow the Titans’ running game and force Collins into third-down passing situations, they would stand a very good chance to win the game and thereby shrink the Titans’ conference lead to two games or, should the Titans precede their meeting with the Jets losing this week to division rival Jacksonville, a single game with five left to play.

Commit to a throw-first offense.

The wide-open attack on display during last week’s 56-35 victory over the Arizona Cardinals is not merely the best way for the Jets to play; it’s their only hope. Let’s be plain: the Jets simply lack the personnel necessary to execute the plodding, ball-control offense prized by Mangini and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. That much ought to have been obvious on the first day of training camp, and if not by that point, then certainly by the time that Brett Favre was acquired. The notion that this team, led by the foremost quarterback of his generation and possessed of two high-quality receivers, would be best served by deferring to a patchwork offensive line and a 30-year-old journeyman running back who had rarely been better than average was unrealistic if not downright foolish.

Nevertheless, the team opened the year seemingly committed to the same brand of stodgy conservatism seen over the last two seasons. Unsurprisingly, it proved a resounding failure. The team had to hit rock bottom on Monday Night Football in San Diego before the coaching staff resolved to write a bigger part for the guy with 448 career touchdown passes. One week, 56 points, and six touchdown passes later, the Jets seemed to have hit their stride. But if the trend is to continue, Mangini and Schottenehimer must resign themselves to life in a Favrecentric universe. Yes, there will be ugly interceptions, and plenty of them. Get over it. What Favre brings to an offense far outweighs what he gives away. That’s why the NFL’s all-time interception leader is also its only three-time MVP.

Split carries between Thomas Jones and Leon Washington.

If Thomas Jones’ late-career renaissance in Chicago entitled him to some indulgence following last year’s disappointing debut in New York, then the honeymoon is just about over after a similarly uninspired start to 2008. Jones, who spent the first five years of his career on three different teams, now has as little big-play ability as any starting running back in the league. Astonishingly, he has not had a regular-season run longer than 36 yards in his last 853 carries. Add the reality that he brings little as a receiving threat out of the backfield and nothing as a goal-line runner, and it’s difficult to understand why Jones continues to command the lion’s share of the playing time at tailback.

Clearly, he scares no one and does nothing to keep pressure off the passing game. His backup, Leon Washington, is arguably the Jets’ most explosive player. Last year, Washington averaged a gaudy five yards a carry behind the same porous offensive line that took the fall for Jones’s lackluster 2007. The year before that, he averaged 4.3 yards a carry behind a line that was quite possibly worse than last year’s iteration. In the worst case, he seems a safe bet to match Jones’s production. In the best case, he would represent an appreciable upgrade and afford greater credibility to the Jets’ play-action passing game.

Start the Bob Sutton Watch.

Lost amid the stirring 56-point outburst last Sunday was the reality that the Jets’ seemingly insurmountable 34-point halftime lead was whittled to an uncomfortably narrow 13-point edge after defensive coordinator Bob Sutton’s defense allowed 35 second-half points. And had Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin not received the jarring hit that would cost Jets safety Eric Smith a one-game suspension and a $50,000 fine, the tally likely would have been 42 points. In a half. This, not one week removed from surrendering 48 points to the Chargers.

Clearly, allowing an average of more than 41 points in consecutive games is unacceptable for any team playing against any other teams, but when one considers the amount of talent on this defense, it becomes particularly appalling.

After spending about $60 million to acquire the likes of Kris Jenkins, Calvin Pace, and the utterly invisible Vernon Gholston, the Jets had to expect more than what they have seen thus far. The defensive line, anchored by Jenkins and veteran defensive end Shaun Ellis, is no worse than average overall. The linebacking corps, led by Pace second-year standout David Harris is probably a tick or two better than the league average. And although the secondary lacks a proven strong safety and an established second corner, it boasts two pro-bowl caliber players in young stars Darrelle Revis and Kerry Rhodes.

Last Sunday’s defensive meltdown was ultimately washed away by the good cheer that invariably follows a much-needed win. But the Jets should remain mindful that not even Favre can consistently outscore a defense as bad as the one we saw over the first quarter of this season. Something must change, and unless the team shows a major improvement over the upcoming spate of games against the lowly Bengals, Raiders, and Chiefs, the Jets should strongly consider handing Sutton his walking papers. Eric Mangini served as secondary coach and defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick in New England and is doubtless capable of coaching this unit should a change become necessary.

By yesterday morning, the initial hype and speculation surrounding a potential Favre trade to the Jets had long since given way to shrugging resignation that he would be dealt elsewhere, most likely to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Perhaps, then, it was the sheer surprise of the midnight announcement that struck me most. Or perhaps it was my sudden appreciation that years of futility had rendered me so unwilling to believe in the first place. In either event, there was no mistaking the momentous thing that had just occurred: The Jets had engineered the biggest, most publicized trade in the history of New York football, acquiring Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers in return for a conditional draft choice. So big was the story that, not one hour old, it occupied the first 21 minutes of ESPN’s 1 a.m. broadcast of Sportscenter. And then it was everywhere.

The current fervor notwithstanding, calmer hands will ultimately write the definitive history of this trade. Even now, still amid the hysteria, it’s easy to appreciate the many caveats that attach: Favre’s advanced age; his questionable commitment to football; his increasingly prominent ego; and a particularly maddening strain of indecision. Add the reality that Favre inherits a tattered, palpably desperate Jets team far removed from the young, highly talented Packer squad he left behind, and you quickly realize that this trade doesn’t guarantee the Jets so much as a winning record, let alone a playoff run of any note. But even at that, it promises something more sorely lacking than either of those things: relevance. By virtue of this trade, and for no other reason, the Jets are once again relevant on a national, league-wide level that they have not known since last they were treated to an impromptu recitation of Dale Wimbrow’s Guy in the Glass, in 1999.

No matter what else may be said of this trade, it is plain that, for at least one season, the Jets will make news of their own accord and not on account of any prepackaged, media-fueled feud over half-hearted midfield handshakes or the contents of a camcorder. Doubtless, this will prove a great relief not only to the beleaguered tandem of Eric Mangini and GM Mike Tannenbaum but also to the players and fans, both of whom could do with a morale boost after last year’s debacle, which, exacerbated by the Patriots’ perfect regular season and the Giants’ miraculous run to the Super Bowl, ranked as the most embarrassing and demoralizing season of the post-Kotite era.

The flip side of the trade is the apparent end of Chad Pennington’s star-crossed career in New York.

Predictably, Tannenbaum confirmed as much early this morning, announcing that Pennington will likely be traded or released. And although it may not be initially obvious, the Favre trade effectively closes the door on Kellen Clemens’s Jet career to the same extent as it does Pennington’s. Clemens, 25, may well remain on the team as a backup until such time as Favre decides to retire again (week 12?), but the likelihood that he will recapture his previous status as heir apparent to the starting job is negligible. Clearly, the Favre acquisition was as much a comment on Clemens’s lack of development as it was on Pennington’s scalpel-ravaged shoulder. After all, if a third-year quarterback can’t crack the starting lineup of a 4-12 team that has no other viable options at the position, it’s decidedly unlikely that he ever will. This reality, coupled with Favre’s chronically impending retirement, makes it a fair bet that the Jets’ “quarterback of the future” is not yet on the roster and will have to be acquired through the draft, free agency, or another trade--and relatively soon.

This truth, perhaps more than anything else, crystallizes the desperate state of the Jets. They have effectively cast both Pennington and Clemens aside for what is likely a one-year run at the Super Bowl with a 38-year-old quarterback who is entirely unfamiliar with the Jets and will have but four short weeks to knock off the rust, learn the nuances of the offense, develop a rapport with his teammates, use his collection of skills to rescue a moribund team from the depths of 4-12, save the imperiled jobs of the head coach and general manager and afford the owner the appearance of actually doing something to help this team. This tall order--and the Jets’ obvious haste to take it on in lieu of the quarterback situation that existed a scant 24 hours ago—bespeaks a foundering organization whose best-laid plans have rarely yielded acceptable results. If the abject desperation of this team wasn’t clear in the wake of the Jets’ wild offseason spending spree on players who were, by turn, overage, inconsistent and inexperienced, then it is clear now.

Ultimately, as with every personnel move, the Favre trade will be judged by what he does for the Jets. And as Favre goes, so will follow the fortunes of Mangini and Tannenbaum. If Favre should fail here, the move will be remembered as an admission of failure--a concession that the blueprint drawn by Mangini and Tannenbaum in 2006 was so ill-conceived or poorly executed as to necessitate a knee-jerk trade aimed at curing their misfeasance in one fell swoop. If Favre wins here, the trade will be hailed as the point at which Mangini and Tannenbaum courageously departed form orthodoxy and graduated from fair-haired novices to big-boy statue in the NFL.

Now the die has been cast, and it’s time to play football again, this time with Brett Favre.

The 2008 Jets’ preseason schedule begins tonight in Cleveland.

By most accounts, Gholston is a talented if somewhat inconsistent prospect who projects as a fine player in the NFL. Nevertheless, this weekend’s draft may ultimately be remembered less for the picks the Jets made than for the one they didn’t: Arkansas running back Darren McFadden. Despite the public-relations spin, the fact remains that the Jets desperately needed McFadden. Chad Pennington needed him. Kellen Clemens needed him. Eric Mangini, too. But above all, their bedraggled, tempest-tossed fans needed him. They needed him both to jump-start a moribund offense and to redefine a staid, faceless and increasingly boring organization. As is their wont, the Jets missed the opportunity, ignoring the overwhelming fan sentiment for McFadden. They knew better.

Thirteen years ago, the Jets faced a similar situation in the 1995 draft. Back then, as was the case this Saturday, they owned a top-10 pick. And as was also the case this Saturday, the draft’s best prospect had seen his stock hurt by character concerns. That player was Warren Sapp. After the Cincinnati Bengals opened that draft by spurning Sapp for future bust Ki-Jana Carter, other teams followed suit. One by one, they passed on him. He fell to number six and to number seven and to number eight. The hopeful speculation grew. Would he fall all the way to the Jets at nine? When the Seattle Seahawks opted for Ohio State receiver Joey Galloway with the eighth pick, the question was answered: Sapp would be there for the Jets, who were suddenly the beneficiaries of a rare stroke of organizational luck. They would have the chance to add the draft’s best player.

The draft gallery, noteworthy for its seemingly inexhaustible collection of mustached, beer-bellied grunts, was overcome. There were hugs and high fives among perfect strangers. Middle-aged men channeled their younger, thinner, less combed-over selves. Nerds made peace with their high-school tormentors. It was something to behold. A Jet official then approached the podium and handed the all-important draft card to then Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. The room was suddenly silent.

“With the ninth pick in the 1995 NFL draft, the New York Jets select tight end from Penn State, Kyle Brady.”

The boos rained down, but the talking heads were quick to admonish the fans in the gallery. After all, the people in the gallery were dummies, and the people running the Jets were “professional talent evaluators.” How could the gallery, chock-full of dopes, profess to know more than a man like Rich Kotite? (Amazingly, there was once a time when this question was not followed by crippling laughter.) Even WFAN football guru Mike Francesa chimed in, noting that Jets fans would regret their opinions “when Brady’s catching 70 balls a year.”

Thirteen years later, we’re still waiting for those 70 balls. For that matter, so are the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team upon which Brady was unceremoniously dumped after four lackluster seasons in New York. For his part, Sapp went on to notch eight Pro Bowls, six All-Pro selections, a Super Bowl ring and a ticket to Canton. Close!

As it turned out, the dummies in the gallery were right. This weekend, it all came full circle for the Jets. The dummies were back. This time, they were calling for Darren McFadden. And although the situation was somewhat different for the fact that McFadden was selected before the Jets picked, the reality is that McFadden would be a Jet right now had they really wanted him. The team that had sold the farm to trade up for Dewayne Robertson and Darrelle Revis decided against trading up for McFadden. Then, in a fitting homage to the incompetence of 1995, the Jets followed their failure to land McFadden by inexplicably trading up for yet another first-round tight end, 6-foot-2 Dustin Keller, who was not projected as a first-round pick. Once again, the Jets knew better. And once again, the boos rained down in grand fashion.

But maybe there’s no reason to worry. Maybe it’ll all work out. Maybe Darren McFadden is the next Blair Thomas; Golston and Keller, the next Lawrence Taylor and Shannon Sharpe. It could be. After all, these are professional talent evaluators.

Even after Adrien Clarke’s amateurish failed attempt at blocking Patriot defensive lineman Richard Seymour resulted in a Patriot touchdown on the Jets’ second play from scrimmage, the Jets responded on the next drive when Chad Pennington, in for an injured Kellen Clemens, threw a perfect pass to Jerricho Cotchery on third and 18 from the Patriot 33, thus setting up 4th an 2 from the 17. The 24-point underdogs were in business, with three points all but assured, a first down six feet away, and Pennington back at the helm, perhaps for the last time.

And so the Jets went for it on fourth down. But when the huddle broke, it was Brad Smith, not Chad Pennington, behind center. Offensive Coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and the Jets’ brain trust had decided that their best shot on fourth down lay not in Pennington’s arm but in Brad Smith’s first NFL pass attempt. And as Smith’s pass fell incomplete, Pennington’s last best chance in a Jet uniform began with a betrayal.

Having been held to account for a fragile body, a porous defense, and an errant kicking game, Pennington was to spend Sunday afternoon enduring one last humiliation, this time not at the hands of the mighty Patriots but by his own coaches and teammates, who threw away their chances in yesterday’s game with dropped passes, missed kicks, poor pass protection, fumbles and utterly inane playcalling.

Still, after the Brad Smith debacle, the Jets began the second quarter down only 7-0. And when Stephen Gostkowski extended the Patriot lead to 10-0 with a 26-yard field goal at the 12:49 mark in the second quarter, the Jet defense responded by stopping the Patriots’ next drive at the New England 40 and forcing a punt, which was promptly blocked and returned 26 yards for a touchdown by the underused David Bowens. 10-7. With less than eight minutes remaining until halftime, it was a game-—an actual competition with the best football team in 20 years.

On the ensuing drive, the Jet defense continued its best showing of the season, stalling the Patriots at midfield after Kerry Rhodes stopped Wes Welker for a two-yard loss on third and 6 with 3:54 remaining in the half. The Jets, the unlikeliest of underdogs, were to take possession on their own 20 with 2:52 remaining in the second quarter, just a field goal from a tie and a touchdown from the lead.

But then a Junior Seau sack on first down was followed by a 5-yard jaunt from Leon Washington, placing the Jets in third and 13 on their own 13 as the two-minute warning struck. Standing in the shotgun, Pennington dropped back and fired downfield for an open Justin McCareins, who dropped the pass, killing the drive. It wasn’t the first time for McCareins. Earlier in the season, he dropped not one but two touchdown passes in a game against Baltimore, costing the Jets the game.

On the very next play, as the Jets were set to punt, the Patriots’ Kelley Washington swooped in, blocking Ben Graham’s punt and setting up first and goal from the three. Two plays later, Laurence Maroney plowed across the goal line and the Patriots had a 17-7 lead.

The first Patriot drive of the third quarter ended after only three plays when Darrelle Revis’s acrobatic interception of a Tom Brady pass handed the Jet offense another golden opportunity. But on first and 10 from the Patriot 34, back came Brad Smith to run a series of option plays to little avail. So predictable and ineffective were Smith’s plays that commentators Jim Nantz and Phil Simms were roused to note the absurdity of the tactic. After Schottenheimer had succeeded in placing the Jets into a difficult third and 7 from the Patriots’ 20, back came Chad Pennington to clean up the mess. After a delay of game lost them five more yards, Pennington faced third and 12 from the Patriot 25. Standing on the outskirts of Nugent’s field-goal range, Pennington stepped forward on the next play, completing a 10-yard pass to tight end Chris Baker, who then fumbled at the Patriot 10 yard line, throwing away yet another drive.

Miraculously, the Jets were able to stave off two more Patriot drives before they took over on their own 15 with 13:53 remaining in the fourth quarter. And once again, it was Brad Smith who led the team out on the field. After Smith’s first play resulted in a holding penalty, Pennington marched back to the huddle to negotiate a 2nd and 17 from his own 8. What followed was a 17-play drive culminating in a Nugent field goal that put the Jets back within striking distance at 17-10. A second field goal from Stephen Gostkowski then extended the Patriot lead to 20-10.

But a 49-yard kickoff return from Leon Washington was followed with a 15-yard horsecollar penalty, and the Jets had a first down from the New England 31. This time, it was all Pennington. On first down, he hit Chris Baker for 11 yards. On the next play, he connected again with Baker for another 7 yards. Then, on first down from the Patriot 20, Pennington delivered a relative bullet to a streaking Justin McCareins at the back of the Patriot end zone. Touchdown. Only it wasn’t. A Patriot challenge confirmed that McCareins had bobbled the ball as he stepped out of bounds. The Jets had to settle for a 35-yard Mike Nugent field-goal attempt, which he pulled left, marking the third time the Jets had come up empty in the New England red zone.

Make no mistake: there’s a reason Chad Pennington was sent to the bench earlier this season. He wasn’t good enough rescue the Jets from themselves, as has been the case for the majority of his career. But he’s received far too much blame for the play of a team rife with incompetents.

If Eric Mangini and Mike Tannenbaum are serious about personal responsibility, yesterday will prove to be McCareins’s last game as a Jet. And while they’re at it, they can ditch Schottenheimer, too. Were it not for his last name, he’d never have gotten this job in the first place, and through two seasons, it’s fairly apparent that he has no idea what he’s doing. And really, who needs a chip off the old block when the old block was 5-13 in the playoffs? Sadly, though, he’s a good bet to outlast Pennington, who will almost certainly be gone next year but who, if nothing else, always gave this franchise whatever he had whenever he could for as long as his body would allow.

The (potentially) good news: there’s been a big change at quarterback, and with eight games left and no hope for this postseason, there’s plenty of time to see what some of the young players can do. Here are a few things to watch as the Jets take on the Redskins on Sunday:

1) The Clemens Succession: Finally, Eric Mangini saw enough. With the Jets offense ranking 30^th out of 32 teams in total yards a game, he has decided to play second-year quarterback Kellen Clemens, who showed promise during two drives at the end of last week’s 13-3 loss to the Bills. The Oregon alum was able to avoid rushes and throw fastballs to his receivers downfield--qualities that distinguish him from his predecessor. However, Clemens did show that he’s a work-in-progress, throwing an interception after attempting a pump fake that Bills cornerback Terrence McGee didn’t bite on. With the exception of last week’s debacle against the white-hot Patriots, the Redskins are a tough defensive team that includes the NFL interceptions leader Sean Taylor and scary linebacker London Fletcher. Expect a few mistake throws from a young quarterback trying to learn his position.

2) Can They Make Some Tackles?: New York is allowing 134.3 yards per game on the ground. But this may be just the game to restore some of the defensive unit's confidence. Redskins back Clinton Portis has been ineffective running the ball in the past three weeks, averaging a paltry 2.7 yards per carry in those games. Still, the Jets will also have to contend with quarterback Jason Campbell’s legs—he’s third among NFL quarterbacks with 100 rushing yards.

3) Yet Another Rookie Starter: With Jonathan Vilma out for the rest of the year with a knee injury, second-round selection David Harris filled in for the star linebacker last week…and was sensational. Harris registered 17 tackles and a sack against the Bills in his first NFL start. Look for the versatile rookie to make even more plays as he continues to evolve into a playmaker for the Jets’ 3-4 scheme.

4) Justin Time?: Reports coming out of Jets’ practices indicate that wideout Laveranues Coles will be out of the game with a concussion he suffered last week. Leading receiver Jerricho Cotchery will probably be double-teamed by Washington’s talented secondary, so who will pick up the rest of the slack? It could be Justin McCareins, who received Clemens’ first throw in last week’s appearance. Apparently they know each other well from their work together on the second team in practice. McCareins has dropped key passes this season, and this could be his best chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the coaching staff. If not, Eric Mangini won’t hesitate to bench him.

5) Chad: The flip-side of the potentially uplifting Clemens narrative. Pennington a solid team guy, and can be taken at his word that he’s going to dedicate himself to helping Clemens. But there’s one thing that TV execs love to show during NFL games, and that’s controversy on the sidelines.

Last week, when he was benched for Clemens late in the fourth, CBS showed the dismayed former starter standing on the sidelines, wondering where his career had just gone. There will be more of the same. The over/under on shots of Pennington standing around, trying hard not to make a face when Clemens makes a mistake? Six. Take the over.