11/17 — We could regale you with the rankings through all Week 10 games that came out this morning courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau — the Jets are rated No. 1 for the fourth straight week in rushing offense, perhaps for the first time in franchise history, and the overall defense and pass defense are both third overall.

But you don't want to hear that. And Rex Ryan doesn't want to hear it, either. As he said Monday:

"The stats say one thing, but we're still not there yet. We have to find a way to get there."

One statistic that says something is that the Jets are tied for first in another category, one that no team aspires to lead the league in, and that's the number of one-score losses.

The Jets have five losses and only the New Orleans game didn't qualify. They've lost to Miami by four and five points, Buffalo by three in OT and Sunday to Jacksonville by two.

Only two other NFL teams have as many as the Jets' four losses by eight points or fewer: San Francisco and Washington.

"This is four games that we've lost basically on the last play of the game," Ryan calculated. "They always say that you stay in the league long enough, it will even out. I certainly hope so because it's tough."

This number also won't make any Green & White faithful happier about the 4-5 record heading to Foxboro. (Or is it Foxborough? Even the town itself seems divided on the spelling.) But it beats the alternative. Close losses in my book say a given team is close to busting out.

The defeats hurt even more when they come on the last play or the last series of a game, and that means, as Rex said, that a team is still not there yet. But this Jets team was too good through training camp, by the end of the preseason, and into its 3-0 start to say let's bag up the footballs and make the January vacation plans.

Yet there is the record, which belies the promise of what these Jets thought they could be. Nose tackle Sione Pouha can be very eloquent on such matters and I think he put his finger on the pulse of the team.

"The most disappointing thing is that you know your ability," Pouha said. "There is that poisonous word 'potential.' Not living up to it is probably the most hurtful thing, when you know that you’re able to do it, you have the keys to do it, you have the individuals to do it, you have the scheme to do it."

Notice he didn't say the Jets can't ultimately live up to this year's potential, only that when any team doesn't do that, it is probably the most hurtful thing.

There is no such automatic thing as a lost season or meaningless games, unless a team makes them so. The Jets' backs are against the wall now. While the margin for error is the width of a nanotube, this season still has things that can be accomplished.

"I understand if people don’t believe in us, and that’s OK, that’s fine," said tackle Damien Woody. "It is up to us in this locker room to go out there and do it and bring all of those people out there back on our side again. We have our work cut out for us, but it is not impossible."

Here are the most "one-score losses" or "1-S Losses" in a Jets season (losses of eight points or fewer from 1960-69 and 1994-present, seven points or fewer from 1970-93 when the two-point try didn't exist) (*playoff season):