Close your eyes Jets fans and imagine this: The Jets are a playoff team right now. If the regular season ended today, the 8-4 Jets would be a wild-card team.

Now open your eyes and breathe in this reality: To stay in playoff position for when the regular season actually ends on Christmas Day, the Jets must beat at least two of their next four opponents, who have a combined record of 34-15.

Making matters even more complicated, the December playoff march begins with Sunday’s home game against a desperate 7-5 Colts team that not only has beaten the Jets four consecutive times and five of the last six, but one that needs to win to save its season.

“This is what football is all about, playing in games like this,” Jets LB Marvin Jones said yesterday. “This is the kind of game you play for. Everything is on the line for both teams. Sure, (the Colts) have to win the game, but it’s a big game for both teams. I don’t think they’re any more desperate to win it than we are.”

Just outside the double doors that lead out of the Jets’ locker room attached to a wall near the equipment room is a sign that asks, “Did you stick your face in the fan today?”

It is a favorite expression of Al Groh’s and one that accentuates the way he likes his team to play.

This is the time of year it is and the Jets believe they’re ready for it, ready to stick their collective faces in the fan, ready to make the tough tackles when the weather is cold, ready to do whatever it takes to get back to the playoffs they bitterly missed last year.

“We’re in the fight,” Groh said yesterday. “The fourth quarter (of the regular season) speaks for itself. The hunt is on.”

Indeed it is. And the path is far from one without steep hills.

The desperate Colts, fresh off Sunday’s shocking loss to the Dolphins inside of the RCA Dome, get it started Sunday.

Then comes a game next weekend against the high-flying 10-2 Raiders in Oakland, where the Jets haven’t won since 1962.

Dec. 17 is the Jets’ final home game, against the 8-4 Lions.

And then there’s the regular-season finale, against the Ravens in Baltimore on Christmas Eve.

The bottom line for the Jets right now is this: Forget about the final month as a body of work. A win over the Colts Sunday at Giants Stadium could all but eliminate Indianapolis and catapult the Jets to 9-4 with a 6-2 record in the division – a critical tie-breaker tool.

“The message to the team is that the first 12 weeks are done, (Sunday’s 17-10 win over the Bears) is done, let’s move ahead and get ready for this most significant stretch of the season,” Groh said. “Everything that has gone on previous to this has created this particular scenario, and we’re fortunate enough to be in it. We’re in the fight.”

Since the Bill Parcells regime, that, of course, included Groh, arrived here, the Jets, once a perennial laughingstock in December, are 9-3 in regular-season games played after November, including 8-1 the last two seasons.

“Now we have to make sure we measure up to the challenge, because it gets more intense in the home stretch,” Groh said. “Everyone we play has the same thing on the line; they’re playing for the same thing that we are.”

While much of the talk presented to Jet players yesterday was about how desperate and dangerous the Colts will be Sunday, the players were more concerned about what they have to do.

“We have to match or better (the Colts’) intensity,” CB Aaron Glenn said.

“They (the Colts) know they have to win this game and probably win out,” CB Ray Mickens said. “We know they’re going to come in here with intensity. Their whole season is on the line. But so is ours. We’re just as desperate as they are.”

Asked how he thinks the Jets’ chances are of maneuvering through the upcoming minefield and getting to the playoffs, LB Dwayne Gordon said, “I think our chances are pretty good. We have eight wins with four games to go, so it’s right there for us to take. You can pretty much say the playoffs start this week.”