11/23 — My good friend Bob Wischusen and I, having driven our chariots to the airport rather than taking the team buses to and from the Jets complex the day before, were conferring in the cold night air on our way to the parking lot.

I asked Bob how he and Marty Lyons passed the time in the second half of the Thanksgiving radio broadcast of the Jets' 34-3 loss at Dallas. Bob, a true pro, said as I expected that he and his sidekick had no problem talking about points of interest for the Jets and their fans.

"You know, it may sound funny," Wischusen said, "but at the beginning of the second half, Marty and I were discussing how the Jets weren't playing all that badly on defense."

I had to agree with Bob. No, they weren't.

Now, does that excuse 34 points, 344 yards — almost two-thirds of it in the last 30 minutes — and another tough defeat? No, it doesn't. And one could make the argument that no matter how well the defense played for a portion of this game, it really was all downhill once the Cowboys sliced to the end zone like an electric carving knife through a holiday turkey for its opening touchdown possession of 63 yards on eight plays.

Let's not forget those parts, but let's put them aside for a moment and consider what happened on the next seven Dallas drives after the first drive: not much. The hosts ran 25 plays and gained 72 yards, a very tame 3.4 yards per play. And they scored seven points, on the miscommunication that allowed Tony Romo to pop a pass to TE Jason Witten over Matt Chatham in the second quarter.

The Jets had their only takeaway in this span, Kerry Rhodes' athletic snag as he fell into the end zone, which was followed shortly by Eric Smith's excellent leaping PD down the deep middle.

They got all three of their sacks in this span, including Dewayne Robertson's best play of the game, the barge up the middle past holding guard Kyle Kosier to take down Romo for a 15-yard loss, giving the Green & White 10 sacks in the last two games.

And they posted all three of their three-and-outs here as well, giving them seven since Sunday to lift them out of last place in the NFL's defensive three-and-outs category.

"We were in the game, we controlled them a little bit and we were able to get off the field early on," Rhodes said. "But later it seemed like they had the ball a lot. When you give an offense like that opportunities, they are going to make some plays against you. They outworked us and outperformed us."

So this is where we stuff that stretch of good play into the dirty bird of 34-3. From there the Jets lost their grip on solid defense and looked as they did at their low points in previous weeks. From there the Cowboys ran 30 plays and averaged 6.1 yards per. From there Marion Barber had runs of 20, 10 and 13 yards and Terrell Owens got to do his thing with six minutes and change left.

The reason this is pertinent is that, while many Jets fans are starting to tell us to "Just End The Season," as they have at this time in past difficult years, the players can't give up. First of all, they're getting paid through Dec. 30 and the reunion with Coach Herm's Chiefs. Second, they're playing for playing time and jobs and careers, as all NFL players do all the time but especially at this time of year.

But most important for me, the Jets defenders established a beachhead against the Steelers. At least it sure looked like a beachhead. And they want to continue to make progress in this scheme.

(It may surprise you to know that despite the many creative alignments and personnel packages against the Steelers, the Jets really may not have played a true 4-3 once. Shaun "Two-Point Stance" Ellis was a great touch, but on those handful of plays when he was a linebacker, the three linemen were still two-gapping. Any four-man lines were in the inventive nickel and dime packages.)

So we can bemoan how the Dallas game wound up, but the defense is in that position of still trying to determine what it is: the unit of Drives 2-8 that is making progress, or the unit of Drives 1 and 9-12 that isn't.

The answer to this question will be further revealed when the D plays a week from Sunday at Miami. That game will set the stage for the Meadowlands matchup against Cleveland's surprisingly good offense and, after that, the trip up to Foxboro.