Woody Johnson has watched the New York Jets dissolve into a bickering mass of in-fighting this week, and he isn't thrilled with the carnival over which he presides.
"I didn't sign up for a 3-6 season," the Jets owner said Thursday, via Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. "We haven't (had) one of these in a while. I'm not happy about it. Yet, I am optimistic."
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Johnson sat by this week as a wave of scathing, anonymous locker-room comments aimed at backup quarterback Tim Tebow washed over the Jets, but he dismissed the insults as "just something out of thin air. So things are said perhaps that they don't mean."
The 65-year-old owner has been a staunch supporter of coach Rex Ryan, who took over the Jets in 2009 and twice brought New York to the cusp of the Super Bowl. Last year's 8-8 campaign ended on a sour note that has given way to this season of struggle. Johnson is bothered by the decline and bristled at the notion he's more interested in publicity and profit than turning the Jets into a winner.
"You guys have been accusing me of this phony story of me being more concerned with PSLs or cash or something else," Johnson said. "My job -- one, two and three -- is to win games. That's why I got into football to begin with ... It's not to sell PSLs or to sell hot dogs."
Those words leave Johnson at an interesting crossroads. The Jets are trending downward, with suspect talent on both sides of the ball. Ryan inherited a more playoff-ready team than he's coaching today, an indictment of general manager Mike Tannenbaum, if not also the coach.
Ryan was everything Johnson wanted early on: a winner who pulled the Jets out of the shadows and announced to the world that Gang Green's long-running second-fiddle act in New York finally was over.
Three-plus years in, the Jets are a curious circus and the Giants are reigning Super Bowl champions -- again.
Probably another reality Johnson didn't sign up for.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
