Jets chairman and CEO Christopher Johnson sat in a board room at team headquarters last Dec. 31, facing a group of reporters. Johnson had fired coach Todd Bowles the night before, and now he was outlining what he wanted in a new coach.

“If you make it here, you’re a freaking legend,” Johnson said that day, sounding a bit like Frank Sinatra. “That counts for something.”

Johnson could have also been talking about himself.

Woody Johnson’s 60-year-old kid brother has been minding the store for two years now while Woody serves as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

When Christopher took over in August 2017, there was skepticism about how much control he would have and whether he would just be Woody’s cross-Atlantic puppet. But Christopher has put his stamp on the Jets in his two years in charge, and if the moves he has made wind up turning the organization around, fans might build a statue of him.

It is not easy to become a beloved owner in this town. Only George Steinbrenner has reached that status in recent history, and that was after he was the most hated for 15 years. The names Dolan and Wilpon usually come with a “bleeping” before them.

In the past 18 months, Johnson has overseen the drafting of a potential franchise quarterback in Sam Darnold, replaced Bowles with Adam Gase in January then made the wildly unpopular decision, because of the timing, to fire general manager Mike Maccagnan in May. He hired Joe Douglas as his replacement in June.

You could look at those moves and say they were obvious, but Bowles and Maccagnan were both good men, and it was not easy for Johnson to fire either of them. The Maccagnan firing took conviction from Johnson because it was oddly timed, just a few weeks after the draft, and he had to know he was going to take a storm of criticism.

But Johnson made the move, absorbed the body blows, and it feels like the Jets are better off for it. Douglas has had an impressive start to his tenure. He has found ways to bolster the roster in July and August, which is not easy to do.

As for Gase, we’ll start finding out Sunday how that hire looks when the games start to count. But he has energized the organization, has solid reasoning behind what he does and is a strong communicator.

This week, Johnson shook up the business side of the operation by replacing team president Neil Glat with Hymie Elhai, who had been the team’s senior vice president and general counsel. Elhai is a bright, popular figure inside the organization who was involved in the hiring of Gase and Douglas, and will be closely aligned with them.

Johnson has been more than a babysitter in his brother’s absence. He has been an engaged owner who has been active but not meddling. Johnson’s strength is he knows what he doesn’t know. He does not try to tell Gase whom to play and won’t tell Douglas whom to draft, but he will give input when asked.

When the Jets were in the market to draft a quarterback in 2018, Johnson sat in on interviews with the prospects, dined with them and had private meetings. He can tell you how impressive Josh Rosen was or how Baker Mayfield opened up after a few minutes. He gave Darnold tips about Ohio real estate, believing the Browns were going to draft him No. 1.

Johnson also masterfully navigated the national anthem controversy in 2017, a tricky one for any owner but especially one whose brother works for President Trump. By supporting the players’ right to protest, he won over the locker room.

All of this won’t matter if the Jets don’t win. Johnson knows that and embraces it.

“The buck stops with me,” Johnson said after last season. “I have to do a better job of getting this organization to a place where we can consistently win, and I will do that.”

We won’t know for sure if he has done that with the moves he made this offseason, but he has not sat on his hands and hoped. Johnson has made moves. If they work, he could be a freaking legend.