On Day After, Jets Reflect on Mesmerizing Defeat Against Patriots EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - So, the quarterback's head collided with the offensive lineman's rump. This is not the start of an off-color joke. It actually happened to the Jets on Thursday night, a sliver of tragicomic slapstick in what will be remembered as one of the ugliest moments in N.F.L. history. The dizzying sequence stunned them like a Taser. In a 52-second span of their 49-19 loss to the New England Patriots, the Jets allowed three touchdowns and committed two fumbles, including the one created when Mark Sanchez slammed into Brandon Moore like a crash-test dummy. A 7-point deficit became 14, which became 21, which became 28. "I don't know if you've ever seen the movie "The Matrix," but it felt like I was in "The Matrix," " said Damien Woody, a former offensive lineman who spent 8 of his 12 N.F.L. seasons with the Jets or the Patriots and is now an analyst for ESPN. It's like it wasn't even real, seeing something like that happen. It's just so strange. You don't see that in N.F.L. games. Then again, no team implodes quite so spectacularly - or as publicly - as the Jets. Their annals of absurdity, from Dan Marino's fake spike to the 4-28 Rich Kotite era to Bill Belichick's resignation as "HC of the NYJ" to the Tim Tebow trade, are rich and copious. An entire chapter could be devoted to this season's preposterousness - and that was before Thursday's proceedings. Only twice since the A.F.L.-N.F.L. merger in 1970 had a team scored three touchdowns in less than a minute, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Atlanta Falcons, on Oct. 4, 1998, required 48 seconds to deflate the Carolina Panthers. The Seattle Seahawks, on Sept. 29, 2002, needed 51 seconds to humiliate the Minnesota Vikings. So, theoretically, it could have been worse for the Jets: the carnage could have lasted 47 seconds - or fewer. Those additional five seconds, though, they intensify the anguish, extend the misery. The day after losses, Coach Rex Ryan usually begins his news conferences by reporting that his breakdown of the game film confirmed what his eyes told him from the sideline. This did not happen on Friday morning. Instead, Ryan - a son of Buddy Ryan, a longtime N.F.L. coach and a defensive assistant during the Jets" only Super Bowl appearance, in 1969, and a 26-year coaching veteran himself - remained stupefied. And infuriated. It's just amazing. I don't know how to put it. There is no handbook that can prepare a coach for history-making ineptitude, for dealing with an unparalleled flameout, for watching a 0-0 game after the first quarter devolve into a 35-3 debacle at halftime. After scoring on the first play of the second quarter, the Patriots recovered a fumble on their 17-yard line with 9 minutes 56 seconds remaining before halftime. Tom Brady sensed, then exploited, a mismatch in coverage. With Bart Scott out of position, Brady threw to a speedy running back, Shane Vereen, coming out of the backfield. Vereen, touched by a Jets defender only as he crossed the goal line, darted 83 yards down the near sideline. Patriots 14, Jets 0. Then, on the second play of the Jets" next possession, Sanchez went to hand the ball off to fullback Lex Hilliard. This would have been a good call - or at least not a bad call - had Sanchez turned the right way. Somehow, despite relaying the play in the huddle, Sanchez forgot. "I was thinking a different play in my head," Sanchez said. Improvising, Sanchez ran toward the line of scrimmage. He tried to protect himself, and the ball, by sliding. Instead, the blooper reel called. It needed fresh footage. Patriots lineman Vince Wilfork shoved Moore back, knocking him into a sliding Sanchez. The ball popped out, and as Sanchez lay face down on the MetLife Stadium turf, Steve Gregory scooped it up, rumbling 32 yards for a touchdown with precisely nine minutes left in the half. Patriots 21, Jets 0. "I think it might have been a miscue," said Moore, deadpan, who grew defensive with reporters when asked about his role - or rather, that of his buttocks, which now rank fourth on the team in forced fumbles - in the mishap: "Why do I need to talk about that?" Already the Jets had collapsed on defense and offense. To complete the Same Old Jets trifecta, the team needed a special-teams meltdown. It came at the 8:51 mark, when Devin McCourty, who returned a kickoff 104 yards for a touchdown against them on Oct. 21, walloped Joe McKnight on the ensuing kickoff. Julian Edelman, as if accelerating around a curve, snatched the ball out of midair and zipped 22 yards into the end zone. Patriots 28, Jets 0. Searching for, then attempting to accentuate what he perceived as positive, Ryan insisted that the team's offense was improving, that the gap between the Jets and New England was not insurmountable and that their blunders Thursday night were "very uncharacteristic of us." He was not entirely wrong. This was, after all, the first instance all season the Jets committed five turnovers. And to be fair, it has been two years now since the last time an offensive lineman's posterior forced a fumble. (Look it up: Matt Slauson and Shonn Greene, Sept. 13, 2010 against Baltimore.) But for the last 11 games - or, the last 14, dating to the final three, all losses, of 2011 - the Jets have made mental errors and coughed up the ball and generally bumbled their way over 60 minutes. It is why their margin of defeat has averaged 18.9 points, why they are 4-7 and not 7-4, why those 52 seconds seemed foreign and familiar all at once. "We've seen a lot of crazy stuff with the Jets, but that game sums it all up," Woody said. That was just a microcosm of their season.