Rex Ryan acknowledges the NFL is “a win business,” but the New York Jets’ head coach insisted Friday that he is not focused on his job security a day after his team fell to 1-6 with a heart-breaking 27-25 loss to bitter rival New England.

“I’m not focused on what’s down the road. I’m focused on the right now,” Ryan said when asked if he’s fighting an uphill battle to keep his job. “I can’t expect my team to be focused that way if I’m looking down the road.

“This is about the team and it’s always been a team and that’s the priority. The priority has never been my future. And that’s just the way it is.”

The Jets’ slim playoff hopes were all but extinguished when Nick Foles’ 58-yard game-winning field-goal attempt was blocked Thursday night. Ryan’s assessment of the team’s first seven games this season was blunt.

“It’s been a big failure,” he said. “Obviously, the season is not over, but you don’t want to be 1-6. If you’d asked me, I was thinking we’d be the other way. We expect to win every game. Obviously, we’re not finding ways to win and that’s really what it is. We’ve done some good things, we just haven’t done it for 60 minutes.”

Ryan maintains an immense amount of pride in his players, who he said were “hurting” after the Patriots loss. At the same time, the team has struggled with consistency on both sides of the ball and Ryan pointed toward a lack of assignment discipline leading to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady completing 20 of 37 pass attempts for 261 yards and three touchdowns.

The Jets rank fifth in total defense allowing 326.6 yards per game, but are 25th in scoring defense at 26.4 points per game.

The Jets have three extra days to rest and prepare for a three-game run into their bye week that includes a Week 8 home date against the Buffalo Bills followed by a trip to Kansas City and a home game against Pittsburgh – teams with a combined record of 8-9 entering the weekend.

“There’s an old thing that I got from Lou Holtz and he talked about winning. He said, ‘What’s important now?’ That’s really what you have to do,” Ryan said. “It has to be on the right now and you can’t look down the road. We just have to find a way to get a win and I hope that will springboard to other things. We can’t deny where we’re at. We’re 1-6. That’s where we are. The job is every day to get better. I believe our football team is getting better, it just hasn’t been good enough to win yet.”

–Ryan brushed off controversy simmering on social media surrounding an official appearing to move Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower out of a position that could have potentially resulted in a penalty on Folk’s blocked kick.

“No, I will say this. I think that is the best officiating crew in the league in my opinion,” Ryan said. “I think (Bill) Leavy and his crew do as good a job as anybody in the league. This league is about protecting the players and that is the way it should be.

“If something like that happens, you’re trying to protect a player before something has a chance to happen, obviously, that is a good thing for the league. Now would I have liked to have seen it snapped there and have Tanner (Purdum) take one for the team and us get another chance at it? Ok, of course. But this is to protect the players and the official is not wrong to do what he did.”