Aaron Rodgers knows darkness well. But can he lift the Jets from their latest spell? (Video)

Jeff Ulbrich knew his audience.

The interim head coach of the New York Jets knew that darkness was more than just a metaphor for the quarterback on whose shoulders the entire team rested.

So on your heels Jets’ fifth straight lossUlbrich leaned over the paintings.

His message for the team that blew an outstandingly winnable league game against the New England Patriots?

“It’s a moment of darkness,” Ulbrich said in his locker room after the rebuilding Patriots defeated them 25-22. “We understand that the outside world is going to be really noisy right now. But the one thing I know in life is that when it gets dark and it gets hard, you work. You point the finger at yourself, look inward and wonder what I can do better.

Rodgers knows darkness as well as perhaps anyone in the league.

In 2023, the four-time MVP spent four nights in complete darkness as he contemplated retirement. Instead of hanging it up, Rodgers emerged from his meditation retreat to facilitate his trade from the Green Bay Packers to the Jets.

Rodgers’ latest emergence from literal darkness has given the Jets a massive boost of hope. But after the Jets fell to last place in the AFC East on Sunday, can he find his strength again?

But as New York’s offense tries to get even with no penalties or delays of play, and the Jets defense tries to stop the offense while special teams misses kicks every week, can Rodgers find the strength to torch the Jets again?

Rodgers was confident that the shade of his hat adequately obscured his eyes in the dark during his post-match press conference.

“I was in the dark,” he said. “You have to go in there. Deal with it.”

The Jets’ loss to the struggling Patriots meant trouble lasting more than a week

What would a room in the dark look like for Rodgers?

The quarterback used Ulbrich’s imperative to point the finger at himself more than at others.

“Offensively, our goal has to be: Just score 30 points,” Rodgers said after a day that went 17-of-28 for 233 yards, including two touchdowns. “It doesn’t matter what the other parties do. We trust our defense and (special teams), but if we’re not scoring 30 goals, we’re not performing.

“This offense can do this every week.”

Rodgers’ words echoed assurances from team owner Woody Johnson when he fired head coach Robert Saleh on October 8, insisting that this was the best Jets lineup he had assembled and therefore should be better than 2-3.

Since then, the Jets have further strengthened both ends of the court, trade for receiver Davante Adams and reaching a contract agreement with reluctant edge rusher Hassan Reddick.

No matter – they’ve now lost five in a row, including three after Saleh was fired, two to Adams and one to Reddick.

And the Jets never reached Rodgers’ 30-point threshold once in eight attempts.

Sunday’s 22 points were their most since scoring 24 against the Patriots five weeks earlier, which still undercuts the Patriots’ points per game.

And while a missed 44-yard field goal and a missed extra-point attempt hurt the Jets in that loss, so did the constant disruptions. The Jets used first-half timeouts before the second quarter began, also committing five of eight first-half penalties.

“For one of them, we were late to training camp, for one of them I was trying to get the right protection, and for one of them I felt like we could have gotten away, but taking (the timeout) there was OK,” Rodgers said. “Our business has been a little slow at times.”

Operational lethargy caught up with the Jets again in the fourth quarter when the team delayed the game again on a two-point conversion attempt after scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 2:57 left. The 5-yard penalty was more than three times the 2 yards needed on the play. The botched play meant the Patriots needed a touchdown, but not an extra point attempt, to win.

Ultimately, the Patriots scored both as the Jets defense trailed the offense’s lead and faded.

Rodgers defended the decision, accepting its consequences.

“They start the clock at 8 p.m., and we had a change and a motion,” Rodgers said. “Before it all went down, the defense they were playing was not good in the expected game. So I thought let’s just move it back to 7, it won’t be that big of a difference. I like the way they played, but they didn’t put any pressure on the pitch.

“And I guessed wrong, they guessed right.”

The planes have a quick turnaround time before the Texans arrive

The Jets will have a chance to cleanse their palate on Thursday. But they’ll have to do it against a 6-2 Houston Texans team whose quarterback has been greener than the NFL for 18 years but is currently more productive.

The Texans’ offense was shakier than last season, when C.J. Stroud won Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. However, Houston’s defense was second in yards allowed and 11th in points allowed this week.

Two weeks ago against the same Patriots team that had just beaten the Jets, the Texans won 41-21. The Patriots had Drake Maye at quarterback for four quarters; The Jets faced him for just 16 minutes before this happened examined and ruled out due to concussion.

Ulbrich, who described himself and the team as “pissed off” and “insulted,” stressed the importance of cleaning up game operations and executing tasks more consistently.

“We don’t perform at our best in critical moments, especially later on,” Ulbrich said. “We say we are not like that. But that’s who we are until we prove otherwise.”

Ulbrich expressed confidence in the Jets’ ability to turn the corner and that the team can come out of the dark like he and Rodgers have done before.

The team will lean on bright spots like Rodgers and Garrett Wilson’s best game of the season as defenses focus on Adams. The Jets defense allowed fewer yards than it had in six weeks, but New York also allowed the underdog group to convert on 7 of 15 third down attempts and three of four trips to the red zone.

Ulbrich said he will “take a close look at everything,” including the forward’s best plan at kicker after Greg Zuerlein’s sixth missed field goal of the season.

Hard work and responsibility are the Jets’ recipe out of the darkness, Ulbrich said.

“If we do this together, and I believe we will, this will be your only chance to get out of this,” Ulbrich said. “This is your only chance to improve and fix some of these mistakes. That’s where we’re lucky.

“The character of this locker room will show who we are.”