It was Al Groh, the New York Jets' head coach, calling Monday evening.

"Probably better than you," came the answer.

The Jets, who have suffered back-to-back losses to Oakland and Detroit, are up against it. Yes, they are 9-6 and control their destiny, but that destiny will place them in Baltimore on Christmas Eve. The Jets' offense that has scored two touchdowns in two weeks faces what is likely to be the stingiest modern-day defense ever.

After the Jets suffered their oddly passionless 10-7 loss to Detroit, Groh -- a Bill Parcells disciple in his first season -- did not tear up the place. He was calm, almost pathologically placid.

"When you make that walk to the locker room, you don't have much time to think about what you want to say," Groh said. "It would be human nature to react to that by being despondent or lashing out. But, at that point the game is over. Whatever you say can only impact the next game. You ask yourself, 'Do I want this to have a positive or negative effect on the next game?'

"I chose to have a positive effect."

Think back to the beginning of the season. The Jets were not seen as a big factor in the playoffs. They have overachieved at times and won a number of close games. Nine of their 15 games, in fact, have been decided in the final minute.

Before the season began, Groh told the media he liked his team.

"I meant that," Groh said Monday. "I said if we play in a certain fashion, we can make ourselves hard to beat, every week. As bitter a loss as that was yesterday, if you think about it, we were hard to beat."

Groh talked about the bounce of the ball. If it had rolled south Sunday instead of north after Jets linebacker Marvin Jones knocked it away from running back James Stewart, the Jets would already be in the playoffs. As it was, Detroit guard Jeff Hastings beat Jets linebacker Dwayne Gordon to the ball by a split-second for the winning touchdown with 5:43 left.

Groh spoke with optimism about the task ahead.

"Well, we're certainly not going to set an objective of scoring 28 points," he said of the trip to Baltimore. "It's like going down to Tampa Bay. They're pretty good, too. But through different ways, we scratched and gouged and I think we scored 21 points (in a 21-17 victory on Sept. 24).

"In most games there are circumstances that put you in position to score points. You make a lot of those circumstances, be it with turnovers or big run backs or whatever. We have to make some of those things happen. We may not have the most all-stars, but we're going to fight like hell to win this game. This is another game where we have to make ourselves hard to beat."

Good luck, Groh was told.