Jets fans have been living this nightmare through the team’s entire history. The Jets are one of the most frustrating franchises in all of professional sports.

Perhaps their fate would be easier to accept if they just rolled over like a pathetic team like the Lions – perennial losers with little chance of improvement. But the Jets constantly offer hope.

They are consistently one of the most active teams in the off-season, moving players in and out as if there was a revolving door at their headquarters. The players change but the results remain the same.

The Jets are the ultimate tease. They offer hope year after year and never deliver.

The biggest reason for their failures?

They have rarely had a football man running the show.

Weeb Ewbank and Bill Parcells were the best they have had but their tenures were short lived. You get the feeling Woody Johnson and Mike Tannenbaum were hoping Rex Ryan would be the answer and finally establish some football identity for this moribund franchise but after a brutal six week stretch they have to be questioning their faith.

It is easy to point a finger at Rex Ryan. He is clearly in over his head but the bigger question is why didn’t the Jets’ decision makers see this coming?

The reason is that they are not football men themselves. How do you run an organization when the people at the top do not understand the game they are selling?

The Jets’ failures this season are just as much an indictment of Woody Johnson and Mike Tannenbaum as they are Rex Ryan. We can complain about Ryan all we want, and there is clearly a lot to be angry about, but he is not going anywhere.

Jets fans are stuck with him, at least for another season. If the losing bleeds into next year Johnson will have no choice but to replace him. For now we have to suck it up and hope he improves.

It is pretty sad that Ryan thought he could win football games with a lot of tough talk and bluster while ignoring the details it takes to be successful. In a way, he had this coming.

His humbling is a good thing and although it is frightening that a guy just nine games into his head coaching career already has no answers for his first losing streak, there is some solace in his concession that he needs help.

There would be no hope for him if he stubbornly stuck with his unsuccessful ways.

The Jets are going nowhere this year. We all know that. But Jets fans should measure Ryan the rest of the way not by wins and losses but by how he responds to this crisis.

Does he start managing games better? Is he getting more involved with the offense and special teams? Is his team more of the aggressor in these contests?

Unfortunately we have to lower our expectations for this rookie coach.

Ryan has been failing because he has no nose for details and has not established enough accountability. His team is consistently unprepared and undisciplined.

None of these facets are his strong suit. The only way he will be successful is if he can instill more of these principles into the Jets’ culture.

The only concern is that these are not intrinsic elements of his coaching foundation and changing them midstream will risk alienating his players. All players know when a coach is not being genuine and will tune him out as soon as they sense it.

Ryan has to grow as a coach and expand his repertoire. If he does not manage games better and is not more thorough in his preparation, he has no chance.

Most top coaches are fanatical about the details. They are control freaks and do not trust others with oversight of key elements of the game plan until they have earned that trust.

The good coaches ease up when that trust has been earned (are you listening Mangini?) but not before. Even after the trust is there the coach maintains a level of accountability just to keep everyone honest.

Ryan abdicated control of his offense and special teams as soon as he walked in the door. That is 2/3 of his team that other guys know more about than he does!

It is just human nature for people to slack off if controls are not maintained and that is precisely what is happening in Florham Park.

False start penalties, too many men on the field, burning time outs – you can bet that these mistakes are occurring in practice, as well as games, yet there is likely insufficient consequences for them. That is why they persist.

Ryan is learning the difference between being an assistant and the man in charge. Sometimes your players are not going to like you and you have to be a son of a bitch to make them better.

But Ryan has not made that transition. He is approaching his job as if he were still a coordinator.

You can still care about your players while being hard on them. In fact, it could be argued that a coach cares more when he leans on them and challenges them to be better.

Ryan’s players have not been rising to the occasion because he has not elevated to meet them. His approach remains the same no matter the results.

That is why Belichick is so brilliant. He constantly changes his motivation tactics based on his read of the team.

It has been reported that Ryan planned the week off during the bye before the season even started. How could that be? How could he know that is what they would need before he even got there?

Good coaches know they must change – according to game conditions, the morale of their team and to changes in the league. This is what new coaches never anticipate and struggle to adjust to while they are trying to make an imprint on their team.

If Ryan’s struggles continue, the organization will make more personnel changes beyond the token firing of its defensive line coach and release of a fringe special teams player. But with every move, Ryan will be moving closer to the unemployment line.

He has already acknowledged that the person to be judged is the one staring back at him in the mirror. That is a positive. You want your coach to take responsibility for his own failings.

I don’t know if breaking down in front of your team is the answer. That alone will not get it done over the long haul but if it moves him to stretch beyond the coach he has been it will have been worth it.

Jets Nation is right for being angry. Despite a rookie QB, the Jets have the talent to be a playoff team and it is frankly a waste of our time to watch them lose to mediocre teams week after week.

But I am not prepared to make a prediction about Ryan’s fate just yet. His undisciplined ways are glaring each time his team takes the field but he is showing the humility to acknowledge he is lost and that takes guts.

He will probably start bragging again if his team strings together a few wins but that will not matter as long as he changes his approach in other areas, like getting more involved and providing more accountability.

If he can make strides in these areas he has a chance.

Like it or not, our wagon is hitched to Ryan for the foreseeable future. Think about it. Do we really want to start over with a new coach already?

Ryan will need patience from ownership and the fan base. He has to be given at least another season to demonstrate that he can get better.

If he falls short, well, it is back to the drawing board and this time it will probably be more than a head coach Woody Johnson will be looking for.