EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Woody Johnson likes the way Aaron Glenn speaks, the way he projects in a room full of people, the way he speaks with conviction. The confidence. The swagger. How he’s direct, to the point and speaks his mind.

It won Johnson over during the interview process, both in their initial conversation over Zoom and then the one in person at the Jets facility before the Jets owner offered Glenn the job.

Both men knew — or should have known — that this new marriage would only work if one of them stayed mostly out of the way. Glenn wouldn’t have taken the job if he didn’t think Johnson would give him the space to build the team his way. It’s why Johnson agreed to make Glenn the highest-paid coach in team history. It’s why the Jets asked Glenn’s approval on their general manager hire, and why Johnson called GM Darren Mougey Glenn’s “sidekick” at their introductory news conference.

As hope for a meaningful season withered amid an 0-7 start, Johnson remained steadfast in his belief in Glenn. At an impromptu news conference in front of dozens of NFL reporters at a New York City hotel in October, Johnson put most of the blame for a terrible season at the foot of the quarterback (Justin Fields, the one Glenn convinced Johnson was worth $40 million).

“I do believe in Aaron,” Johnson said then. “I’ve always been a fan of him. I see the way he handles the room. If I were a player, I would respond to him because he’s the real deal. No BS. There’s no second agendas. What you’re hearing is the truth, a lot of time players don’t get the truth. They get a lot of gobbledegook.”

Johnson then added that he hugs Glenn every day and tells him to “keep the faith, man.”

“I really do,” Johnson said. “I’m not a liar.”

Johnson might still believe in Glenn’s oratorical skills. Maybe they still hug it out every day. Maybe Johnson really does believe in the plan Glenn has laid out — and maybe he’s even accepted that this season was doomed before Halloween, and the best course of action was to start thinking about 2026. The Jets wouldn’t have traded away two of their best players without Johnson’s approval, and without his understanding that things could get ugly this season once they were gone, and that the plan goes beyond this year.

“I do know there’s a belief in me. I do know I believe in him,” Glenn said about Johnson after Sunday’s game. “That’s why I’m glad I took this job is because of ownership and what he’s about, what (Mougey) is about, what this organization is about.”

Johnson might be OK with all of that — but there’s no way he’s OK with this level of losing. The owner wasn’t in attendance on Sunday. If he was, he would have witnessed Patriots fans overtaking the home crowd with MVP chants for a quarterback that wears the uniform of the franchise’s most bitter rival.