Given that Chad Pennington has performed as well as he has this season, there shouldn’t be a lot of hoopla over who the backup quarterback is. It’s been ex-Redskins starter Patrick Ramsey for the first four weeks of the season, though there was some question once Pennington was named the starter in late August whether Ramsey would beat out rookie Kellen Clemens for the No. 2 role.

But other than a few snaps taken by rookie Brad Smith on gimmick plays, Pennington has been behind center for every play this season.

However, given the chunks of time Pennington has lost to injuries in his career, particularly the last two seasons, the role of Jets’ backup quarterback will always be crucial.

Clemens has been the designated third, or emergency, quarterback the first four weeks of the season. But coach Eric Mangini acknowledged today that Clemens has gotten some reps with the second team this week.

That, in itself, is not an indication Clemens will be active as the backup Sunday at Jacksonville. But the franchise is clearly grooming Clemens to be the starter someday. Before the Jets and Pennington started so well this season, the thought was that time could come next season.

Mangini, who’s been known to mask genuine information through wordplay and semantics, said he likes testing his quarterbacks during practice.

“Whether you’re the second quarterback or the third quarterback, what I like to do is just randomly throw you in,’’ Mangini said. “Some of it is planned and some of it is random, because that’s the way the game goes. Some of that is just to keep him sharp and to gauge his progress, as well to see if what he’s doing in the classroom is translating out on the field.

“It’s a part of the whole prep,’’ Mangini said. “What I like that Kellen and Patrick do is, every day after practice, they get a group of skill guys together and go through the whole script. Even though they have gotten a limited amount of reps, they repeat practice themselves and with some of the other guys that may have gotten limited reps, and they go through the mechanics and the operation. That’s good for them and good for us.’’

Mangini was then coy was asked whether Clemens taking second-team snaps was planned.

“It was a little bit of both,’’ Mangini said. “I think one was planned and for one we wanted to see how well he was paying attention.’’

The guess here, though, is that, come Sunday, the more experienced Ramsey will be Pennington’s backup and Clemens will be the emergency quarterback.

It just doesn’t seem to make sense, given the Jaguars’ strong defense and the fact that Pennington injured his shoulder against the Jags last season, to potentially put Clemens in that spot if Pennington did get hurt. Ramsey is better suited to enter the game in that situation.

But it makes for interesting speculation.