10/14 — This was the toughest Jets postgame locker room I've seen in a while, following their 16-9 home loss to the Eagles. And for the first time this season, anger entered the equation.

"As of tomorrow," DE Shaun Ellis said, "we have to put this behind us and come out as an angry football team."

"Anger? I can't even tell you," said LB Jonathan Vilma, rarely at a loss for even a diplomatic phrase on the state of his team. "I don't know right now. I can't give you a good answer. Come back tomorrow. Maybe I'll have some better answers for you."

Whatever answers the players have privately, not much was shared with the reporters after the Jets sank to 1-5 for the first time since 1999. But several players weren't going with the "There are 10 games left, we could still go 11-5" angle.

"We can't keep saying we're going to get moving, not at 1-5," safety Kerry Rhodes said. "We can't seem to get it together. ... At this point we're not good enough, we're not where we should be. We played in spurts, but spurts aren't good enough in this league. We can say we what we want, 'We're good enough, we've got good players' — which we do. But 1-5 is not good enough."

The defense had its bad spurts early, giving up the 75-yard touchdown pass from Donovan McNabb to Kevin Curtis, the final 45 yards or so coming after the missed-tackle combo of Eric Smith and Andre Dyson, and the 8:23 drive that, even though it ended in a missed field goal, showed how the Jets were struggling to get off the field.

But then the "D" did its part in the second half with three three-play drives, two resulting in punts and one in Hank Poteat's first career interception, but all the Jets could produce from those stops was three points.

The offense gushed in the running game with Thomas Jones getting 96 first-half yards and 134 on the day.

"That definitely was our emphasis this week," tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson said. "We wanted to really move it on the ground. Today definitely gives us an option in our plan of attack."

But meanwhile, the offense stopped producing in one of its favorite areas, the red zone. The Jets got inside the Eagles 20 four times and came away with three field goals. The last time the Jets went at least 0-for-4 in the red zone was in the next-to-last game of the 2001 regular season against Buffalo.

The quarterback issue will continue to be visited by media and fans. Chad Pennington, who said he was "just numb" after his touchdown-less game and 11-for-21 passing day, addressed it by saying: "I'm not concerned. Whatever happens, happens. Coach Mangini is the head coach and I'm the player. I prepare every week to play well. That's totally out of my control."

Kellen Clemens deflected similar questions. "That's a decision the coach makes," the backup QB said. "I know the whole team supports every player in this locker room. We all have each other's backs."

FB Darian Barnes offered some fire on the subject of people who blame Chad for this three-game losing streak, the first of his career as the Jets starter.

"They'd better not," Barnes said. "This is a team. We're an offensive unit. We all could've played better. I could've played better. To put it all on one person is ridiculous."

Eric Mangini declined to do that, as he always does. On whether he's contemplating change at the position, he said, "No, it's a situation again where it comes down to the full group. ... There is plenty of improvement for all of us."