09/09 — One of the main questions in the Jets' locker room following their 38-14 opening-day loss to New England in the Meadowlands was what it means about the distance between the two AFC East rivals. Was the difference the same as it was in the Jets' January playoff loss in Foxboro? Was the gap widening?

The players were most definitely not happy about the results, but they were not throwing in the towel over the chances of beating the Patriots in Week 15 or the Ravens in Week 2.

"I didn't know anything about a gap," said Laveranues Coles, one of the standouts in defeat with a pair of touchdown receptions from Chad Pennington. "We still get to play them again. Whenever that time comes, we have a lot of ballgames between where we have an opportunity to play. This was one ballgame, one out of 16. If we had just beat them twice but were 2-14, would we be good or would we be awful?"

Pennington, who stayed on the field and stood at the podium in the interview room despite an ankle injury suffered in the third quarter, pointed to what he called offensive "bursts of excitement" against the Patriots that "were presenting the problems"

"What we have to do is look at those things, build upon those things, be very critical of the errors and mistakes we made, and move on," the QB said. "Even if you win the game, you don't say, 'Well, we can roll our helmets out there from now on because we've made it,' because we haven't made it. It's definitely a 16-game season and they're all important."

LB Jonathan Vilma admitted to disappointment in losing the opener the Jets and the defense had been building toward all off-season and preseason.

"It's a little discouraging — you always want to play better in the first game," Vilma said. "But it's not the end of the season for us. We have 15 games left. It's just a matter of going back, regrouping and getting ready for Baltimore."

Of course, you can do the math and look up the history. The 24-point loss was the worst season-opening loss at home in franchise history, although there haven't been that many season openers at home. It was the largest season-opening deficit since the 31-6 loss at Denver in 1996.

But it helps to keep things in perspective. The Jets opened their 1981 and '85 seasons with 31-0 season-opening losses — and qualified for the playoffs both years. The Patriots opened 2003 with a 31-0 loss at Buffalo and went on to win a Super Bowl.

This says nothing about where the Jets are headed this season, just that, as Vilma calculated, there are 15 games left on the schedule.

As tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson said after his opening-day scuffles, "Whenever you're not successful, you're going to feel certain reservations. We know we're a team and can recover from anything."

And recovery right now is down I-95 in Baltimore.