FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — There was a time not so long ago — two times, in fact — when the only thing standing between Rex Ryan and an opportunity to play for football’s biggest prize was a Pittsburgh Steelers team quarterbacked by Ben Roethlisberger.

Now Ryan, the seemingly doomed coach of the New York Jets, has to hope Roethlisberger and the Steelers aren’t standing between him and a pink slip.

As badly as the Jets are playing — they will be looking to avoid a team-record ninth straight loss Sunday when the Steelers visit MetLife Stadium — it is unlikely Ryan will be fired before “Black Monday” on Dec. 29. Owner Woody Johnson remains very fond of Ryan and is expected to afford Ryan the dignity of finishing out the season before making a change.

Still, given the bad publicity that has enveloped the Jets in the last two weeks, nothing can be ruled out of the realm of possibility, especially if the Jets head into their bye week with a lopsided loss to the Steelers.

“I don’t look past Pittsburgh,” Ryan said Monday when he was asked about the possibility of being fired during the bye week. “I know my opportunity is to be a head coach right now and I am going to do the best job I possibly can do for this football team.”

He will need to be a miracle worker in order to figure out a way to turn the best efforts of he and his undermanned players into a win on Sunday.

These Jets are about as far removed as humanly possible from the two Ryan squads that lost to the Steelers in the AFC Championship game — the 2008 Baltimore Ravens, for whom Ryan served as the defensive coordinator, and the 2010 Jets.

“I’ve had a lot of matchups against Big Ben through my days,” Ryan said Wednesday. “I lost two championship games to him. I had some good games against him and all that.”

Unfortunately for Ryan and the Jets, Roethlisberger is also far removed from the quarterback he was in 2008 and 2010. Today’s Roethlisberger is the hottest football player on the planet. He has thrown six touchdown passes in each of the Steelers’ last two games, the first time any quarterback has ever thrown six touchdown passes in back-to-back games.

His 12 touchdown passes in the last two weeks are as many as the Jets have in their last 15 games combined. He has thrown for 862 yards in the two record-setting games — 21 fewer yards than new starting quarterback Michael Vick, benched quarterback Geno Smith and third-stringer Matt Simms have thrown for in their last five games.

“He’s just on fire right now,” Ryan said. “They’re doing a great job of executing their offense and they have a lot of weapons.”

The Jets, on the other hand, can’t stop anyone and can’t score. They have given up 252 points, the most in the league, and have surrendered 24 touchdown passes, six more than the second-place Houston Texans.

It has been an imperfect storm for the Jets, whose general manager, John Idzik, ignored cornerback during the offseason even though the Jets knew they’d face pass-happy Green Bay, Chicago, Detroit, San Diego, Denver and New England during a six-week span in September and October.

“You don’t get to pick your schedule or when you’re playing them and you don’t know when teams are hot or whatever,” Ryan said. “I’d like to be the team that’s hot. We keep working at it. Hopefully, that’ll be the case real soon.”

The numbers suggest Ryan will be waiting a while. The Jets have scored 154 points, the sixth fewest in the league but the second fewest among the teams that have played nine games.

Ryan finds solace in the Steelers, who averaged just 20.6 points per game in splitting their first six games before Roethlisberger caught fire the last three weeks, a stretch in which Pittsburgh has scored 124 points.

“We’ve got to find a way to get it in (the end zone),” Ryan said, “Now, look, I’ve been around it where all of a sudden it can turn just like that, i.e., look at the Pittsburgh Steelers. They were like 30th in the league up until I think three weeks ago and now they’re scoring when they get down (in the red zone). So things can turn, and hopefully they will for us as well.”

Unlikely? Sure. But for Ryan, maintaining some optimism probably beats pondering the inevitable axing that awaits, whether it falls next Monday or seven weeks later.