11/15 — Shortly after the Jets’ fifth loss in six games, their 23-year-old quarterback read off a crinkled note sheet at the podium. He talked fast while describing certain plays and then summed up his team’s current state of affairs.

“The bottom line to this whole thing, to this entire game, to our entire season, it’s find a way to find a way,” said rookie Mark Sanchez following the 24-22 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. “Coach challenged us already — we have to find a way to win games right now. We are finding ways to lose, but we’re in a position right now: sink or swim. I know we have a lot of fight in us, we have some great veteran leaders and they’ve been in spots like this before, so we’re going to call on their leadership, on coaching.”

Before this all-important contest, Rex Ryan talked about how it was going to be important for Sanchez to avoid turnovers in the second half of the season. But his first pass on the first play from scrimmage — a deep ball intended for an open Jerricho Cotchery — was picked off by Jags CB Rashean Mathis.

Fifty-five Maurice Jones-Drew yards later, the Jags had a 7-0 lead. It was a deflating start to a game the Green & White needed.

“This is a tough league to win in and you can’t make mistakes early like that. When they score off your turnover, it puts you in a huge hole,” Sanchez said. “Those seven points early might as well have been a pick-six. That’s the way it feels as a quarterback and that’s the way you look at the game.”

But the Jets responded with the next 10 points and took the lead on Sanchez’s 7-yard scoring pass to Jerricho Cotchery. The Jags took over the game with 14 unanswered points of their own before a late Jay Feely field goal and had a 21-13 advantage at the break.

“We need to put the ball in the end zone a little bit more,” said guard Alan Faneca as two of the Jets’ three first-half scoring drives stalled in the red zone. “I don’t know how much we were down there and didn’t put it in.”

There were no points for either team in the third quarter, but the Jets committed two turnovers. In a wild sequence, Sanchez was intercepted by DE Quentin Groves but Groves stumbled on the return at the Jets’ 4. Two plays later, Jags QB David Garrard gave the ball back to the Jets on a fumbled handoff to Jones-Drew as Mike DeVito recovered. And then when Sanchez hooked up with Braylon Edwards for a long 41-yard gain, Edwards fumbled and the Jags recovered.

“You can’t make crucial mistakes in game like this. This is the NFL. This isn’t college,” Edwards said. “Guys will capitalize and it will come back to haunt you. And that’s just what happened today — little mistakes came back to haunt us in a big way.”

Fortunately, the Green & White were able to escape the third without the Jaguars capitalizing on those pair of miscues. Feely’s third make, a 40-yarder, cut it to just 21-16 and then Sanchez led an impressive 16-play, 77-yard scoring march that culminated on Thomas Jones’ 1-yard dive.

“The best part of the mental side of it is I battled back all game,” said Sanchez, who finished 16-of-30 for 212 yards with one TD and two INTs. “I played smarter the rest of the game. I’m proud of my effort.”

But he waited a little long on the two-point conversion attempt and Edwards couldn’t hang on to the toss as safety Reggie Nelson delivered a huge blow. So instead of a three-point cushion at 24-21, the Jets only were up, 22-21, with five minutes remaining.

“It feels frustrating because we need to convert that two-point conversion to help our defense out. That’s a bad throw — it has to be on Braylon sooner,” Sanchez said. “If they need a touchdown, maybe they force a throw here or there and our defense isn’t in that position at the end of the game, so I hurt us.”

Ryan tried to get Sanchez the rock one more time, but Jones-Drew smartly went down on the Jets 1-yard line when the Jets (minus any timeouts) tried to concede a touchdown.

“He’s making big-time throws in big-time situations. I don’t normally concede anything, but I have a lot of confidence in our offense,” Ryan said. “If we were down by [six], I thought we could drive and score. I felt good about that. I think he’s playing well.”

Nine games into his NFL career, Sanchez almost led the Jets to a fourth-quarter comeback victory. But the Jets didn’t do enough on this afternoon and they’re all sick of that refrain.

“I think we’re over the young quarterback stuff," Faneca said. "You’re not a rookie anymore. He is out there making plays and he’s out there making mistakes just like the other guys out there on the field with him."