NFL

Jets owner calls on fans to be Green Monster

The owner of the Jets urges his fans to bring throat lozenges. He wants Tom Brady to have to call for the earplugs.

In the biggest game of the season, and one of the biggest of his ownership, Woody Johnson wants MetLife Stadium to be a Green Monster Sunday night for the Patriots.

His shoutout to Jet New York:

“Bring your passion to the game. The Jets fans are very intelligent, they’re the smartest fans in the country, so they know how important it is.

“Let it all hang out. Don’t hold anything back.

“If the fans are our 12th Man, we can win this.”

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When Jets fans arrive for this first-place showdown with Brady and Bill Belichick, stadium personnel will greet them with: “Let’s Go 5-0.” In addition, there will be “Let’s Go 5-0” and “Beat the Pats” signage all over. The Jets are 4-0 at home.

“It’s a great building,” Johnson said in an exclusive interview with The Post. “The end zones are very steep — steepest in the league, so it’s a wall of people. But it’s really the fans … they give the building life. And when they’re turned on — as they will be this week — this will be sold out, sold out. We’ve got a bunch of single [tickets] that we’re keeping as fans show up. … Really there’s nothing left.”

Johnson, the owner since 2000, was asked if he expects this to be the loudest crowd during his time.

“Absolutely, yes,” he said. “The fans are starting to get used to the stadium and how to react to things better.”

The fans hate the Patriots, and his players hate the Patriots. This game could signal a changing of the guard, finally.

“The rivalry is our most intense and has been for most of my ownership,” Johnson said. “As you remember the (Drew) Bledsoe hit that we (Mo Lewis) put on him introduced the new era of Patriots football.”

I asked Johnson: “How badly do you want to overtake the Patriots?

“Well, you’re not in this sport unless you like competition,” he said. “And so the competition has been brutal over the last 10 years. It’s a divisional game No. 1, so it’s worth more to us than just a regular football game. This is particularly important, because we have developed a pretty intense rivalry as our fans appreciate.”

Belichick ran to Robert Kraft not long after it was established that Johnson would succeed Leon Hess. Johnson stole Eric Mangini away from Belichick.

“We have (Bill) Parcells, Curtis Martin … there’s a lot of things that have happened back and forth to make this relationship and this rivalry as special as it is,” Johnson said.

Do you feel like this is your time?

“I think we’re getting better each year, and I think our arrow is definitely pointed up,” Johnson said.

H said he considers the Patriots ”a model franchise.”

Do you think you are?

“I think we’re a model franchise as well,” he said.

You don’t hate the Patriots?

“I look at them as a big rival, because they are good,” he said. “If they weren’t any good, I wouldn’t consider them a big rival.”

Johnson’s confidence in Rex Ryan has only grown. “His football sense, his leadership skill, his motivational skill is the best I’ve ever seen,” he said. “He’s really something special.”

And Mark Sanchez? “He still has that kind of enthusiasm that he had the first day I met him, which is infectious,” Johnson said. “His particular unique brand of leadership works here.”

The owner is comfortable having Sanchez quarterbacking his team against Brady.

“Absolutely. …. You can never count him out,” Johnson said. “His resiliency and his fight and his ability to pull it together when everything’s breaking apart, and he can pull his team together and make it happen.”

Johnson believes that the Santonio Holmes-Brandon Moore turmoil may prove to be a great moment.

“I wasn’t concerned at all,” Johnson said. “Football’s a very emotional game and emotions run high, and those things happen. You get two star players like that interpreting events differently, that happens, that’s all straightened out.”

Johnson feels that the three-game losing streak has hardened the Jets.

“Those games may have given us what we need to win,” he said.

“Just to give us the resolve, to know what it felt like, No. 1, and knowing how to prepare better even though we’ve been together for a while now.

“Sometimes that kind of adversity can really set the pace for us. That gives us a reference point from which to take off.”

His team is ready to provide the fury, his fan base the sound.

“I’m very excited,” Woody Johnson said, “and very confident.”