Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.
There are plenty of places for Jets owner Woody Johnson, his general manager Mike Tannenbaum and his head coach Rex Ryan to look and see signs of the demise of their franchise from Super Bowl contender two seasons ago to middle-of-the-pack ordinary today.
They can look at their roster, which has far less talent and depth than it had two years ago.
They can look at their team’s annual decline in the NFL rankings — particularly on defense, which has always been the backbone of Ryan’s reputation. Their ranking on defense has gone from No. 1 in the NFL in 2009 to No. 6 in 2010 to No. 20 last season to its current No. 22.
They can look at their recent drafts, which have produced far too many misses and not nearly enough hits.
They can look inside their injury-depleted locker room, where some players are so new to the team they don’t even have nameplates on their lockers yet.
They can look across the MetLife Stadium parking lot at the Timex Performance Center, where the Giants have been managing injuries to key players more successfully by replacing starters with capable backups because they have stocked their roster with better players.
Most of all Johnson, Tannenbaum and Ryan can look in the mirror, because the fall of the franchise is a result of their shortcomings.
A mere 20 months ago the Jets were playing in the AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh and looked like a team on the rise. Since that loss to the Steelers, they are 10-11.
Is there a team in the NFL that has fallen further faster — from Super Bowl contender to virtual irrelevance?
“What’s gone wrong with that team? In a nutshell, talent,’’ a respected NFL personnel evaluator told The Post yesterday. “Look at the talent base now compared to a couple years ago. They haven’t drafted well. There is nobody that scares you on that roster. The problem is the Jets don’t have explosive players on their roster. There are no playmakers, not enough talent.
“That goes to the top. It goes to Mike [Tannenbaum]. At end of the day you’ve got to be accountable for this roster that you are ultimately responsible for.’’
Johnson clearly has grown complacent in his trust of Tannenbaum as a talent evaluator. Tannenbaum, who has the last word on personnel, has to answer for the depleted roster with poor depth and draft picks whose production has not been commensurate with the places they were picked.
The shine, too, has been dulled on Ryan since he came out of the gate so strongly with those two AFC Championship runs in his first two seasons. His bombastic personality and press-room bravado has slowly disappeared the way his blitz-happy, take-no-prisoners defenses that were all the rage the first two years have.
The best thing the Jets did in their hard-fought 23-17 loss to the Texans was avoid becoming a punch line after their embarrassing 34-0 loss to the 49ers a week earlier. A second consecutive blowout loss — coupled with their ongoing confusion at quarterback (to Tebow or not to Tebow?) — would have marked the return of the “circus’’ moniker they detest so dearly.
So, Monday night’s good news was the Jets didn’t look like the wreck most thought they would against the Texans. The sobering reality, though, is they looked like an undermanned team without enough talent to hang with one of the better teams in the league.
The Jets have drafted 21 players since 2009 and not one has emerged as an impact league-wide star who has even remotely been a part of a Pro Bowl conversation.
Their Monday night opponent, the Texans, represented the perfect example of a team that has progressed while the Jets have regressed.
When the Jets faced the Texans in 2009 in Mark Sanchez’s NFL debut, they won big, 24-7, in Houston. At that time, the Jets were a team on the rise and the Texans a model of mediocrity, having failed to make the playoffs in their first nine years of existence.
Now, the Texans, a year removed from their first-ever postseason berth, are 5-0 and considered one of the top Super Bowl contenders while the Jets are 2-3 and headed in the wrong direction.
mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com