11/04 — Losing may be getting old, but the Jets found a new way to come up with an L, and this one stung like L as well.

"The best plan during the whole game is to make plays," safety Kerry Rhodes said, "and we're not doing that right now. It's hurting us."

"Obviously, it doesn't feel good," linebacker Eric Barton said tiredly, sadly, after the Jets took Washington to overtime today, only to lose to Shaun Suisham's fifth field goal of the game, 23-20.

But actually, the Jets lost to the Redskins' running game. Clinton Portis had 196 yards on 36 carries. Ladell Betts added 64 on nine. QB Jason Campbell scrambled twice for 31. In all, the 'Skins had 48 carries for 296 yards.

"It's frustrating because we had some good idea where it was going to hit," head coach Eric Mangini said of his run defense, which obviously had a false positive in holding the Bills to 108 rushing yards a week ago at the Meadowlands. "We had eight men in the box for the most part. We had some good shots of us playing it effectively and being in the right gaps. Then there were some other shots where we weren't able to do very much at all."

"We knew we had to stop the run and we didn't do it," Barton said. "That's why the game turned out the way it did."

To put the 'Skins' and Portis' games into perspective, here are the most rushing yards by team and by individual in franchise history:

Portis' 196 yards was the most given up by the Jets to one back at home since Curtis Martin, then a Patriot, went for 199 in the Jets' overtime loss at New England in 1997. And Washington's 296 were the most given up to an opposing team since Buffalo went for 304 in the 1973 season finale, the same game in which O.J. Simpson rushed for 200 to give him 2,003 for the season.

The state of the Jets has had an unsurprising effect on its good people: They're trying to carry the team on their shoulders. They're trying to hit seven-run home runs. And they're making mistakes.

Such as WR Jerricho Cotchery, who was charged with a fumbled reception early in the fourth quarter when the Jets were in Mike Nugent field goal range (although many Jets fans will look at that call and wonder how referee Ron Winter's crew didn't call this an incompletion after Cotchery was slammed by Shawn Springs and Pierson Prioleau). Then Cotchery clearly dropped a pass early in overtime heading toward the 'Skins' red zone.

"I was pressing a little bit, trying to raise my level of play," Cotchery said quietly in front of his locker. "I've got to hold onto the ball. I've got to track the ball and bring it in. I didn't do a good job of bringing it all the way in."

But there were some good moments amid the gloom. Kellen Clemens did start and did play well, if unevenly. He threw well and ran well. And he hopes he gave Jets fans filing out of the Meadowlands today and those to come in the three remaining home games something to cheer about.

"I hope they're thinking something positive about me and about us," Clemens said optimistically after the second start of his career and the first after Mangini took the offense's reins from Chad Pennington and handed them to him. "We're giving great effort. We're just coming up short."

Washington said basically the same thing. I told him after his postgame news conference that he was the first Jet since Bobby Humphery in 1986 to return the opening kickoff of a game for a touchdown and the first Jet ever to perform such an opening act at home. He was happy to hear that, and he was upbeat  for his team as well.

"We went 10-6 last year and went to the playoffs. We're not doing that this year, but we'll be better off for this season," he said earnestly.

I agree. There will be a day when the Jets come out of this tailspin and will be a winning team again. But that day is hard to see right now, after the latest truck just ran them over.