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FOXBORO - Rex Ryan makes no apologies for who he is or what he does.

In fact, the head coach of the New York Jets - who reportedly teared up and cried while delivering an emotional speech to his slumping team on Monday - seized upon the publicity that followed by bringing a box of Kleenex tissues to his press conference Wednesday in Florham Park, N.J., setting them on the podium and announcing to the gathered New York media that he "had a new sponsor."

In Foxboro, about 200 miles to the northeast, Patriots' coach Bill Belichick was predictably asked if he had ever cried during a pep talk to his team.

"I've coached 35 years, so I've probably covered most bases," Belichick said. "I think I swore once, too."

Belichick offered those comments strictly tongue-in-cheek, and the laughter that followed help to break up some of the lingering angst over the Patriots' highly disappointing 35-34 loss Sunday night to the Indianapolis Colts. They certainly got a rise out of quarterback Tom Brady, who held court with the media in front of his locker a few minutes later. "I can't ever imagine Coach Belichick doing that in front of us," said Brady, who's preparing himself for the latest resumption of the Border War against Ryan's Jets (Sunday, 4:15 p.m.; Ch. 4, 12). "He coaches us pretty hard. Every coach has a different style ... it's an emotional game, so I think we all put a lot into it every week. You try to convey a message, and our coach always conveys a message of the truth: 'This is how I feel, this is the truth and this is what we need to do.'

"I think we always find a way to respond to that," he added.

No doubt, the Patriots have to respond to Belichick's message this week or they're the ones who'll be crying the tears of a clown. After the crushing loss to the Colts, in which the wisdom of the coaching staff's play-calling decisions was questioned from one end of the country to the other, the Patriots now have to play a divisional foe that handed them a 16-9 loss in the New Jersey Meadowlands early in the season - a game in which the volatile Ryan pumped up the volume by pleading with fans in the Tri-State Area to get on the Jets' bandwagon.

The bandwagon has a few air-pressure issues in its tires as it limps into Foxboro this weekend. The Jets have lost five of their last six games, but four of those losses have been by five points or fewer. Although their record says one thing, Belichick is not taking anything for granted.

"We've been in a couple real competitive games with them," Belichick said, "but we've just got to see if we can do a little bit better job this week and be more competitive with them than we've been the last couple times."

The Patriots were frustrated without Wes Welker in the lineup in the first game, allowing the Jets to concentrate off of their efforts upon stopping Randy Moss. With Darrelle Revis leading the attack, Moss was held to just four catches for 24 yards in the game.

In his last four games, Moss has accounted for 28 catches, 524 yards and six touchdowns. Welker, meanwhile, has had 52 of his 64 catches, and 569 of his 662 yards, in the six games since returning to the lineup on Oct. 4 against Baltimore.

Although Julian Edelman filled in fairly well for Welker in the first game, he's not Wes Welker. And the smart money says that with Welker in the lineup, the Jets won't be able to duplicate their successful approach to shutting down Moss.

"They played a lot of over the top coverage with Revis and (Kerry) Rhodes," Belichick said. "They played over the top of him quite a bit, not always, but quite a bit. Revis is a good player. He matches up against basically every team's best receiver.

"He sometimes roams around back there, a little bit like Kerry Rhodes does, and (Lito) Sheppard, for that matter," he added. "They do a good job. They are well-coached and they're pretty instinctive back there in the secondary. They know what's going on in the passing game, who needs help, where the quarterback is trying to throw and they go over there and dig them out." Brady, obviously frustrated over being able to put just nine points on the board in the first meeting, said the Patriots will have to do a better job of picking up the Jets' blitzes than they did in September.

"We're going to see how well we prepare and how much better we understand what they're doing so that we can be more prepared for it, and go out there and try to execute better," Brady said. "But it's a good scheme. It's been proven for a lot of years, but the Jets really seem to have adapted to it. They're playing some great football."

Brady is also understandably wary of what the Jets' secondary can do.

"They have a good group," he said. "They play within that scheme very well. They change a lot of things up, so you can't really ever get a read on exactly what they're doing and it's a very competitive group. So we've got our work cut out for us."

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.