NFL

If Jets debacle continues, nobody’s job is safe

STAY OR GO? Jets owner Woody Johnson was vague when asked if coach Rex Ryan (inset left) and GM Mike Tannenbaum (inset right) would return next season. But, he did say Mark Sanchez is “our franchise quarterback.” (CSM/Landov, Jeff Zelevansky (Ryan), AP (Tannenbaum))

It often isn’t what the owner says as much as it is what the owner doesn’t say.

If you believe the owner wants to win as much as, say, Bob Kraft, if you take the owner at his word that he wants to win more than he wants to sell PSLs or hot dogs, then you better believe the owner will be sharpening his guillotine and heads will roll if the season spirals out of control and falls off a cliff.

Now, no one would compare Jets owner Woody Johnson with Vince Lombardi, no one has ever heard him say, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” but make no mistake, he isn’t a happy camper right now, and there is trouble in paradise.

“I didn’t sign up for a 3-6 season,” Johnson said yesterday on the Jets practice field.

It is therefore safe to conclude he didn’t sign up for a 3-7 season.

And he didn’t sign up for Mark Sanchez to play like this, especially after the organization passed on Peyton Manning (cough, cough). And he didn’t sign up for Tim Tebow not playing at all. And he didn’t sign up for more toxicity inside coach Rex Ryan’s locker room.

Remember, Johnson whacked Eric Mangini following two straight years out of the playoffs. Ryan is staring directly at two straight years out of the playoffs.

But all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men, Ryan appears to be the one who will be entrusted to put it back together again.

Everyone else I believe, like Humpty Dumpty is in danger of having a great fall.

We can start with Mark Sanchez. Ask yourself this question: Is this the quarterback Johnson will want trying to beat Eli Manning and the Giants to the historic first New York Super Bowl in 2014?

This is how Johnson answered a question about his confidence level in Sanchez as the once and future leader of his team.

“Mark is a player on the team, and we’re going to evaluate him as we do the other players, and he’ll be evaluated just like anybody else.”

The bloom is off that rose.

“It’s not about one player,” Johnson said. “It’s 53 players. This is a team sport, 11 a side, and everybody has to do their job to win.”

But Johnson said he knows full well the quarterback is the one player the team needs to do his job to win. Does Johnson still view Sanchez as a franchise quarterback?

“He is our franchise quarterback,” Johnson said. “I don’t view him that way, that’s what he is. That’s what it is.”

General manager Mike Tannenbaum is losing sleep, presumably over the drafting of Vernon Gholston and Vladimir Ducasse and keeping David Clowney over Danny Woodhead and trusting Wayne Hunter and replacing Jerricho Cotchery with Derrick Mason.

Johnson admires Tannenbaum’s smarts and indefatigable work ethic, but the owner didn’t sign up for what is looking no better than a 6-10 season, especially on the heels of an 8-8 season. If Tannenbaum has made a mistake on Sanchez, you generally don’t get to pick another quarterback.

Asked if Ryan and Tannenbaum will return next season, Johnson said: “I never make any statements mid-season about players, or anything like that so …”

Colleague Brian Costello followed up smartly with: “How do you feel about the job that Mike and Rex have done?”

Pause.

“I think … we’ll see this week,” Johnson said. “But I think that the record says what’s going on. … I know the fans aren’t happy. … We’re not happy with 3-6. I didn’t sign up for a 3-6 season. We haven’t had one of these in a while.”

Ryan and Tannenbaum are 11-14 since the 2010 AFC Championship game.

“I’m optimistic, one game at a time, that we can do OK,” Johnson said.

The good news for Ryan is the owner parroted his cockeyed belief that the team is close-knit and could be galvanized by the anonymous Tebow-bashing, and agreed that it was cowardly.

Ryan defended Tony Sparano, who replaced Brian Schottenheimer, now the Rams offensive coordinator. But Johnson was involved in the decision to snare Tebow as a weapon, and the move has exploded in everyone’s face.

“Tebow is the one that everybody’s talking about,” Johnson said. “But you have to look at all the players, and why aren’t they used, and why are they used.

“When we’re 3-6, you have to evaluate everybody. It’s a team sport, and it’s up to coaches, and Sparano and the head coach to decide how many plays any player has, and obviously, we need a few more good plays, and we really have to stop stepping on ourselves in some of the other plays.”

And what of Tebow? Wasn’t he allegedly the apple of Johnson’s PSL eye?

“This I really want to clear up,” an agitated Johnson said. “You guys have been accusing me, this phony story, about me being more concerned with PSLs or cash or something else. Listen, my job one, two and three is to win games. That’s why I got into football to begin with, it’s to win games. … It’s not to sell PSLs, or to sell hot dogs.”

So if the owner decides that Tebow can’t help him win games, sounds like he might not be around to sell hot dogs either.