Gang Green’s most famous passer likes Mayfield’s charisma

IF B ROA DWAY B a ke r M ayf i e l d becomes the next Jets franchise quarterback, he’ll have one prestigious fan welcoming him to town.

Asked by The Post what stuck out to him about Mayf ield, Broadway Joe Namath said: “Well eve r y t h i n g , his demeanor. His attitude. He has a spark. He has a personality that shows a no-quit kind of guy. The anger gets in him, the competitiveness comes to the surface. You can see it, you can see the enthusiasm. His teammates, from what I’ve seen, trusted in him, counted on him. And boy, his footwork, his passing ability ... he looked like a tough quarterback to [defend]. Those other guys too, but he looked damn good.”

Namath mentioned Drew Brees and was asked if Mayfield reminded him of the Saints quarterback.

“A bi t . If anything, Mayfield may even have slightly quicker feet, I’m not sure. I don’t have any doubt that if he doesn’t get hurt, he’s gonna be around, man,” Namath said. “The guy can flat pass that ball and move around beautifully.”

Namath said he likes Mayfield’s f ield vision and decision-making.

“I’ve seen Mayfield be able to go not from his first receiver to his second, but even to his third and his fourth,” Namath said. “That’s important. But you gotta have the time or you gotta buy the time with your feet, and he’s done that.”

But Namath refuses to play GM and pick his favorite quarterback on Thursday night.

“I haven’t met these guys,” Namath said. “I gotta look him in the eye. I gotta know what kind of guy he is personally. I have not seen enough of any of them and I haven’t met any of them, so I wouldn’t say, ‘I think they should get this guy.’”

Namath also gushed over Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Josh Allen, Mason Rudolph and, to a lesser degree, Lamar Jackson.

“I don’t know that he’s the kind of passer that these other guys are,” Namath said of Jackson. “I don’t think he is, from what I’ve seen. He’s had a God-given ability that’s better than any of the rest of the guys to run the ball, too, and that is a sensational ability, but in pro football, it’s questionable how long the body can hold up from the hits. He was nothing but a winner since his high school days, and he’s thrown some beautiful passes, but not with the kind of consistent accuracy that I’ve seen these other guys throw.”

Namath lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan from the time he was a rookie.

“That can be a bit distracting at times,” Namath said. “It can weaken your focus, you might say. It’s a dangerous spot for a ballplayer to maintain his focus on his job the way a coach would like him to maintain his focus.” So how did he maintain his focus? “It was a bit scattered from time to time, I have to admit,” Namath said, and chuckled. “I maintained my focus after a couple of tough losses, man. When you know your team lost because it was totally your

fault, but 99 percent it was on you, that you played like a dog, that got my attention.”

He doesn’t recommend living off Broadway for the new Jets quarterback.

“As far as efficiency goes and time management and what’s important on your schedule, being close to where your job is, being close to where you need to be ... Florham Park, I would stay as close to that as possible,” Namath said. “Even back then, I never liked sitting in a vehicle trying to get from Point A to Point B.”

Young Namath was more concerned with his surgical knee than the New York microscope. That was in the pre-TMZ, Page Six and social media days.

“There was n’ t as much s c r ut i ny,” Namath said. “You weren’t as much on stage, so to speak.”

Namath, so proud of his Joe Namath Foundation supporting children’s charities and neurological re s e a rc h ( Jo eNamath.org), was asked if he had any advice for the incoming Jets quarterback.

“I think you keep your head on straight,” Namath said. “The less you read about yourself, the less you watch yourself being critiqued, the better off you’re gonna be.”

Namath admitted the outside noise affected him at first.

“It was early on until it literally dawned on me that I knew more about what I was doing in the team than what I was hearing and reading about,” he said.

Mayfield has been known to let negativity fuel his almighty chip.

“To each his own,” Namath said. “I can buy that.”