NFL

Jets’ defense proves Sapp’s shot off base

It was a good couple of hours before the Jets beat the Chargers 27-21 yesterday at MetLife Stadium when a powerful motivational seed, which would help ignite a long-awaited signature performance by the defense, was quietly sown.

Still dressed in street clothes, Jets linebacker Calvin Pace was walking through the hallway in the bowels of the stadium en route to the locker room when he heard the NFL Network’s pregame show being piped through the speakers.

“I heard them say, ‘Revis is the best player and the rest of the guys on that defense are just average,’ “ Pace told The Post, his words saturated with indignity. “That fired me up. It was personal.”

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Just two days after Mike Francesa irked Darrelle Revis so badly in an on-air interview with his badgering that Revis hung up on him, it was NFL Network talking head Warren Sapp who was doing the tweaking yesterday.

“He said some things I don’t agree with,” Pace said.

Sapp’s assessment didn’t sit well with Revis, either.

“That makes me upset,” Revis told The Post. “That puts fuel on my fire, too, because we’re in this together. I feel really upset at Warren for saying that because this is a team sport, not a one-man sport.”

If Sapp watched yesterday’s game, he’d have a hard time disagreeing with Revis. Sure, Revis’ 64-yard INT return in the fourth quarter — his third pick in the last two games — set up the Jets’ go-ahead touchdown.

But this win was about a lot more than the Jets’ Pro Bowl cornerback.

It was about the defense returning to its roots under Rex Ryan as a havoc-creating bunch that disrupts even the best offenses in the league.

Considering the offensive powerhouse the Chargers were bringing to MetLife Stadium, this was a game that was going to have to be dictated by and won by a the defense that hadn’t shown a lot of signs this season of being the same dominating unit it’s been the last two years.

Plaxico Burress and his three TD receptions will grab headlines, and justifiably so considering he’s been a lightning rod for criticism about what’s been wrong with the Jets’ offense this season.

But the Jets defense won this game.

After allowing the Chargers to convert on third downs in the first half so easily it looked as if they were sashaying through a Sunday buffet line, converting on 6-of-7, the defense turned in its best 30 minutes of the season in the second half.

The Chargers made 1-of-7 third-down conversions in the second half. They were held to five first downs and 117 yards of total offense in the second half. After Philip Rivers completed 8-of-12 passes for 92 yards and a TD in the first half, he was held to 8-of-20 for 87 yards and two INTs in the second half.

“This is one of the best wins I’ve had playing here, because we were down, we were in a hole,” Pace said. “They were getting the ball [to start] the second half. It could have gotten ugly. But at some point you’ve got to [step up] and say, ‘We’re either going to get blown out or we’re going to fight and come back and win this game.’ ”

You know the rest.

“We came out with so much energy and will I think we just took the life out of them,” Pace said. “People can say what they want to say about us, but today a lot of guys showed a lot of heart. This is a team that gets motivated by a lot of different things.”

On this day, it was a quiet walk down that hallway on the way to the locker room that provided an unexpected boost of energy to prove this Jets defense is not Revis and a bunch of saps.

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com