NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The frustration wasn’t written on Todd Bowles' face, but it was apparent in his answers.

The Jets' typically guarded, vanilla head coach kept his stoic expression, but let down his guard and showed some sharp-tongued anger after Sunday’s back-breaking 26-22 loss to the Titans at Nissan Stadium.

Bowles used words like “fuming,” “disgusting” and “pissed off.” He admitted his team beat itself.

Finally, after six straight losses, Bowles showed some emotion. It’s was a welcome change of pace from his typical “everything’s fine” routine.

But, in the middle of a third straight season of irrelevance, Bowles also sounded a whole lot like a coach who has run out of ideas on how to fix this mess.

He admitted as much, too.

“If I knew the answer to (why the Jets can’t finish wins), honestly, we’d be finishing right now,” Bowles said. “We’re doing the same thing we’ve been doing. At some point, we have to make a play to win a ball game.”

Finishing off games wasn’t the only thing that confounded Bowles. When asked what was wrong with the Jets' league-worst red-zone offense – which went 0-for-3 again on Sunday – Bowles came away stumped again.

“I wish I could answer that question,” Bowles said. “We haven’t scored in quite some time consistently and we get stuck every time we get there. Thank goodness for (kicker Jason) Myers and that’s not enough to win ball games. We have to be able to score touchdowns and stop people and we have not done that, especially today.”

But the biggest indictment of both the Jets and Bowles himself came when he admitted his team regressed against the Titans. That confession came after Bowles summarized his postgame locker room speech by saying, “we won’t be a good football team until we’re a smart football team.”

So how close are the Jets to being a smart football team?

“Judging by today’s game, we’re far,” Bowles said. “Before today, we weren’t very far.”

It was another startling admission for Bowles, who usually opts to paper over the cracks or talk around problems. But at this point, even he can’t find a way to spin this.

The Jets are regressing. The defense collapsed again. The offense still can’t score. And their coach is stuck searching for answers.

Matt Stypulkoski may be reached at mstypulkoski@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @M_Stypulkoski. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.