10/07 — The password is "frustration."

"It's just frustrating," LB Jonathan Vilma, sitting in front of his Meadowlands locker today and shaking his head after the Jets' fall-from-ahead 35-24 road loss to the Giants. "We've got to find a way to climb back out of it."

Cornerback Andre Dyson, who missed a costly tackle on Plaxico Burress, agreed: "It's frustrating. You make good plays and make bad plays, and you have to learn from both and try to get better for next week."

"I know the fans are frustrated. I'd be frustrated if I was a fan," QB Chad Pennington said, standing at the podium in the interview room. "It's frustrating. It makes you sick to your stomach, really."

The Jets' game was one of those typical tale-of-two-halves games. In the first half they looked sharp on defense, efficient on offense and took a 17-7 lead into their locker room. Then they answered the Giants' quick third-quarter score with Leon Washington's second kickoff-return TD in three games to maintain their 10-point lead. It looked like this might be the day the Green & White asserted themselves.

But from there, things, in Pennington's words, "fell apart." Or perhaps a good metaphor would be like an amateur trying to lay a rug.

Just when it seemed as if the Jets defense was ready to make a big stride after stifling Eli Manning and the Giants' pass defense, the pressure lessened (Manning wasn't sacked, although Victor Hobson's second-quarter blitz that produced Manning's intentional grounding was as good as a sack), Burress broke free down the sideline for the go-ahead 53-yard score, and the run defense started yielding big chunks of yardage again (113 second-half yards to Brandon Jacobs and Derrick Ward).

And just when the pass protection seemed to have all the answers for Big Blue's pass rush, Pennington was getting some mustard on his shorter throws and the offense appeared tight enough to move up and down the field against their stadium co-tenants, Pennington threw two costly fourth-quarter interceptions, one stopping the Jets' march toward the Giants' red zone early in the frame and the other being returned by rookie CB Aaron Ross with 3:15 to play to put the game away.

Another theme that arose was the familiar refrain of "60 minutes of football." The Jets certainly played about 45, since they took a 24-21 lead into the final period before they lost the lead for the first time in being outscored, 14-0, in the final 15 minutes. As head coach Eric Mangini calculated it:

"We can't be a fourth-quarter team, we can't be a first-quarter team, we can't be a first-half team or a second-half team. We've got to string it together."

WR Jerricho Cotchery, the intended target on all three of Pennington's picks this afternoon, echoed that sentiment and also echoed the theme of the locker room.

"We hold ourselves to high standards. ... In the first half we met those standards and in the second half we played way below those standards," Cotchery said. "That is the frustrating part and that is the discipline part."

You can expect the Jets players to remain on message as they get ready to play their second NFC East team in two weeks, the Eagles, next Sunday in a Meadowlands home game. They still will try to focus only on the next day, the next practice, the next week, the next game.

But after this game, there were some grim undertones to the players' remarks.

"It's going to be tough," Washington said, "but at the same time w'ere going to keep preparing ourselves and keep the same approach."

The math is not good. Since 1990, only five teams — the 1992 Chargers, 1993 Oilers, 2002 Jets and Titans, and 2004 Packers — started 1-4 and made the playoffs. That's five teams out of the 85 that started 1-4, a 5.9 percent success rate.

Probably the most upbeat assessment came from tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, who teamed up to hold the Giants, who registered 12 sacks against the Eagles the week before, to no sacks until three minutes remained.

"We can't allow this little pitfall, this hiccup to impede our progress," said Brick. "We're a group who truly believes in one another. The game didn't go our way. Next week hopefully it'll be a different outcome."