NFL

Jets’ Revis looks to shut down Dolphins receivers

Even when Darrelle Revis looks up in the air today, some three weeks removed from the scene of the crime, he can still see the football and the back of Ted Ginn Jr.’s jersey.

And it still ticks him off.

“This game, for me, is personal,” the Jets third-year cornerback told The Post of Sunday’s rematch with the Dolphins. “They got me the first game on the deep pass for the touchdown. I don’t usually give up big plays.”

No he doesn’t.

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Forging his reputation as one of the best shut-down cornerbacks in the NFL, Revis had held Texans Pro Bowl receiver Andre Johnson, the NFL’s leading receiver in 2008, to a quiet four catches for 35 yards in the season opener. That was followed by holding New England’s Randy Moss to just four catches for a harmless 24 yards.

Then came the game in New Orleans, where he held Saints’ top wideout Marques Colston to one catch for 19 yards.

Nobody was getting over on Revis, who seemed to be paving a smooth, unobstructed road to a second consecutive Pro Bowl. Not Johnson, not Moss, not Colston.

But Tedd Ginn Jr.?

There was the Dolphins’ speedy receiver, who’s been known more for making key drops than for making big catches, beating Revis on a 53-yard touchdown pass that gave Miami a 24-20 lead in the fourth quarter of the Dolphins 31-27 win on Oct. 12.

Just three days before that Dolphins game, in a conversation with The Post, Revis had prophetically warned that the secondary “cannot sleep” on a guy like Ginn just because the Dolphins figured to be running the ball a lot out of their “wildcat” formation.

That’s what irks him most of all — he was prepared for the potential surprise attack.

“The guy didn’t play the whole game; he only played a couple of snaps,” Revis said. “They brought him in fresh. I’m not saying I was tired or anything, but they had a good game plan on that bringing him in at the right time and him doing the double move on me. It happened and I’ve got to move on.”

Part of what helps Revis move on from the rare disappointments he encounters comes from words of wisdom his uncle, Sean Gilbert, gives him during weekly conversations.

Gilbert, a former first-round draft pick who played 12 years at DE in the NFL with four different teams, has been there and done that.

“We talk about the Ginn theory every week,” Gilbert told The Post yesterday. “He can’t afford to sleep on anybody. I tell him, ‘You’re target now. Someone wants to make his name off you. You’ve got to go out with the mentality destroy, fighting to take wills.’

“You can feel like you’re concentrating and you’re focused, but it’s like chess. You know the strategy and the moves you want to make and your phone rings and you have a slip in concentration and you didn’t see the bishop all the way back there ready to take out your rook. It’s not the end of the game. You just re-strategize.”

That’s what Revis has done since the Miami game. He’s refocused and gotten better.

In the Jets’ game following Miami, he suffocated Bills’ WR Terrell Owens, who caught only three passes for 13 yards.

“He followed me everywhere I went,” Owens sighed after the game.

Last week in Oakland, he made an acrobatic interception in the end zone to erase the one decent offensive drive the Raiders managed in the game.

Revis, the Jets’ top draft pick in 2006, has done what he said Gilbert has preached to him — extra work to make himself better “behind closed doors when no one is watching.”

That has led to intense offseason workouts and extensive film study on the opposing receivers he’ll face. Revis’ film study is so comprehensive that he knows what an opposing receiver is going to do almost before the opposing receivers knows.

When facing Moss, Revis said he sat directly across the field from Moss every time he went to the New England sideline after a series. “When (Moss) went to the bathroom,” Revis mused later, “I went to the bathroom.”

“Now he’s in a place where he’s starting to learn how to coach himself and it’s very humbling and awesome to see him develop,” Gilbert said.

“My uncle always told me the guys that have long careers study film on receivers and get tips and tendencies,” Revis said. “By studying film it makes the game easier, it makes you play faster.”

Jets safety Eric Smith marveled at Revis’ “make-up speed” in coverage, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like it. The receiver will be open for a second and if (Revis) is in a bad position in two steps he’s right where he should be. That’s not one of those things you test for in the (scouting) combines. Darrelle have another gear no matter what.”

Revis, too, has a drive to be the best that blows his teammates’ minds.

“Someone with his caliber of talent can easily take days off and use his talent to get by in practice and drills, but not with Revis,” CB Drew Coleman said. “As good as the guy is in man-to-man coverage he thinks he can get better and that’s the scariest part. It’s like you don’t know where else he can go, but he’s working at it so he can get better.”

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com