NFL

Jets’ Cromartie credits Revis talk for turnaround

Antonio Cromartie admits he hasn’t been the same — either as a player or as a person — since Darrelle Revis sidled up to him on the Jets’ dejected flight home from Pittsburgh in September.

Sensing his fellow cornerback wasn’t playing up to his abilities after the day’s 27-10 loss to the Steelers, Revis decided to make Cromartie aware of that in no uncertain terms.

Revis’ words certainly sunk in, because Cromartie considers himself both a changed player and a changed man since that heart-to-heart not long before Revis was lost for the season to a knee injury.

“It was a different conversation, and I’m grateful for having him as a teammate and coming to me and making sure that I’m playing at a high level than having a coach tell me,” Cromartie said yesterday. “Hearing it from your peers is more meaningful.”

Cromartie took those words and ran with them, because the Jets’ secondary hasn’t experienced anywhere near as steep of a dropoff since Revis’ Week 3 injury as you might expect for a team playing without arguably the top corner in football.

With Cromartie leading the way with big hits, big plays and a team-high three interceptions, the 4-6 Jets will take the NFL’s fourth-ranked pass defense into their Thanksgiving night showdown with Tom Brady and the 7-3 Patriots at MetLife Stadium.

Cromartie was in an unusually reflective mood yesterday as the Jets prepared for their bitter AFC East rival, and it was the mention of Brady that prompted it.

Cromartie had notoriously labeled Brady an “a**hole” before their January 2011 playoff meeting for what Cromartie claimed was Brady’s under-publicized reputation among players for pointing at opposing sidelines after touchdowns and other antics.

Cromartie got the last laugh that day in a Jets’ upset, but has been conspicuously quiet since. New England is 3-0 against Gang Green since then, but Cromartie said his ensuing silence about Brady has more to do with maturity than embarrassment.

“I’m at a totally different place, career-wise and life-wise,” said Cromartie, whose wife is expecting twins this month that will run his famously large personal total to 12 children by eight different women.

“I’m just going out and playing football,” he said. “I’m enjoying it and having fun. At the end of the day, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be playing. So I’m just going to go out and have fun as much as I can.”

That fun no longer includes taunting the Canton-bound Brady, Cromartie said.

“The guy has won multiple Super Bowls,” he said. “You have to have respect for that.”

Speaking of respect, Cromartie’s younger teammates say they have even more of it for him now that he has stepped up so noticeably — both on the field and in the locker room and meeting rooms — since Revis went down.

“He’s a big influence on all of the young [defensive backs],” rookie safety Josh Bush said. “It’s great to have him and all the veteran guys [in the secondary] to lean on.”

Now that he has had an extensive taste of what it’s like to be Revis and be the No. 1 corner responsible for covering the opponent’s best receiver each week, Cromartie is determined not to experience a letup when the Jets star returns.

The epiphany Cromartie said he experienced on that flight from Pittsburgh still rings true.

“It shouldn’t have taken Revis to go down for me to be playing at a very high level,” Cromartie said. “I took it for granted having Revis on the other side. The biggest thing for me now is to make sure I continue to be this guy even when Revis comes back next year.”