Here are three things for which Jets fans can be grateful: 

1. They still play in a league that features the Detroit Lions, and despite every effort by the Steelers to give them their first win Sunday, the Lions politely declined and settled for a tie. As long as the Lions are in the league, the Jets aren’t the worst football team on the planet. 

2. Archival footage still exists of Super Bowl III. That really happened. 

3. In the rush to have the rest of Mike White join his jersey in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, these past couple of weeks the Jets did not trade, waive or release Zach Wilson who, we were reminded across 60 gruesome minutes of MetLife football Sunday, is and remains the quarterback of their future. We can slam the trunk on any quarterback controversy. 

Yes, Wilson was the only person in the employ of the Jets who had a good day Sunday, when the Bills obliterated the home team 45-17, a 28-point spread that doesn’t come close to representing how completely Buffalo dominated. A week after being humbled by the Jaguars, there was nothing humble about the way the Bills left 53 tire tracks on 53 players. It was that gross. It was, in modern blow-out parlance, a thorough boatracing. 

White came hurtling back to earth, throwing four interceptions, collecting a gaggle of ugly incompletions, then finally was chased from the game after taking a hard hit on a sack late in the fourth. If one great game didn’t solidify his immortality, one lousy game shouldn’t render him unplayable. But it seems everyone can take a deep breath about him now. 

“You hope you can learn from that and not let it happen again,” White said. “You have to be able to make adjustments. This is the NFL. Guys are good.” 

Besides, White wasn’t alone in his misery. The wretchedness was everywhere. The defense was deplorable, again, allowing a Bills offense that was barely functional against Jacksonville to truck them. With the game still within the competitive zone late in the half Corey Davis fumbled after a catch and a big gain dragged the Jets into field-goal range. 

“We’re trying to do things the right way,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “Obviously it’s not good enough. That starts with me. We have eight games left and we have to figure it out.” 

Give Saleh credit for this: he will not happy-talk his way through these endless Sundays of suffering. He is from the defensive side of the ball, and he has coached good defenses, and so what he sees from this Jets defense has to keep him on the brink of nausea week after week. But he understands the players can absorb only so much of the blame. 

“Ideally in our system we get better as the year goes along,” he said, “but clearly that’s not happening.” 

The quarterback issue is always going to be the fun issue, the chatty issue, the issue that dominates the water cooler and the saloon and drive-time talk radio. The harsh truth is that Wilson and White (along with Josh Johnson and, for a garbage time scoring drive Sunday, special guest star Joe Flacco) could all channel 1984 Dan Marino and it wouldn’t much matter. To wit: 

Fifty-four. 

Thirty-one. 

Forty-five. 

Forty-five. 

Now, those numbers could be, say, the prime four home-run years of Mickey Mantle or Ken Griffey Jr. or Jimmie Foxx. Then those four numbers — an average of 43.8 — would be happy numbers. These are not happy numbers. These are the points the Jets have allowed in their last four games, to New England, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Buffalo. 

In some ways, this free fall came out of nowhere; in the first five games of the season the Jets allowed plenty of yardage but only once surrendered as many as 27 points in a game. There was a resilience and a code to the defense, it seemed to take pride to keep the Jets in games even as the offense (led by Wilson) tried to light itself on fire every game. 

Now? 

Now there is no relief. If the offense scuffles — and “scuffles” is about the kindest word you can find to describe Sunday — the defense is now a full-blown co-conspirator for the ugliness. It isn’t just that they’ve been bad, they’ve been noncompetitive. That’s a hard capsule for any coach to gulp, especially one who made his bones on that side of the ball. 

“We’ve shown we can be a good football team,” White insisted. 

They’ve also shown the other side of that coin. Plenty. Too often. All day Sunday.