Rex Ryan’s defense of Woody Johnson falls flat as Alex Smith skewers ‘cowardly’ Jets owner

Rex Ryan tried to come to the defense of his former boss — and he paid the price for it.

With the Jets still looking for their first win of the season — and well on their way to extending the longest playoff drought in the league — ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” played clips of owner Woody Johnson slamming quarterback Justin Fields at the NFL owners’ meetings in Manhattan during the week, saying, “If we could complete a pass, it would look good,” adding of rookie head coach Aaron Glenn, “It looks like he is turning around part of it… You have a quarterback with the rating that we’ve got … he has the ability, but something is not jibing.” 

Ryan, who coached for Johnson and the Jets from 2009-14, and has made it no secret he’d want the job again — even interviewing for the vacancy earlier this year — said the franchise was at “rock bottom” before coming to the owner’s defense.

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“Woody was trying to support his coach,’’ Ryan said Sunday. “Everybody, including the quarterback, has been atrocious.”

He noted the Jets’ main rivals, the New England Patriots, have turned around their franchise with their new head coach, but he erroneously called ex-Titans coach Mike Vrabel a “first-time, new coach.”

Ryan also turned his attention to the Giants, crediting them with sparking their fan base with rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart as the Jets struggle again with Fields, the starter of Sunday’s game against the Bengals, despite being benched last week for Tyrod Taylor, who is currently out with a knee injury.

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But it was Ryan’s support of Johnson that didn’t go over well with his ESPN colleagues, especially former quarterback Alex Smith, who said the Jets’ mess, starting with ownership, meant “nobody wants to go there” when it comes to quarterbacks.

“It’s rock bottom, but it’s rock bottom because of this guy,’’ Smith said of Johnson. “It is impossible to overcome dysfunctional ownership. This is the definition of it: Woody Johnson. I lived it. How many head coaches and quarterbacks has this guy mowed through, and he drove the bus over this kid [Fields].”

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Ryan also made clear he would have had Fields as his starting quarterback if he’d been in charge with the Jets.

“I’ve got to be dead honest here, he would have been my quarterback,” Ryan said of Fields. “The kid has ability.”

And of Johnson, Ryan said, “I think Woody is feeling the pressure right here. I’ll tell you this about Woody Johnson: He’s a guy who wants to win. In the worst way, he wants to win. He’s a good man.”

But Smith didn’t want to hear it, noting that Sam Darnold and Aaron Rodgers, among others, have left the Jets and had success again elsewhere.

“Maybe the problem is you, Woody,” Smith said. “Maybe the problem is you… It starts at the top and trickles down. This is cowardly. This is an owner deflecting because his organization is terrible.”

The Bengals led at halftime Sunday, 24-13.