Antonio Cromartie believes he is returning to the Jets a different player than the one fans saw in the 2013 season.

Cromartie, who signed a four-year contract with the Jets on Wednesday, said a hip injury slowed him down in the final season of his first stint with the team. Now, that is just a memory.

“It’s behind me,” Cromartie said on a conference call with reporters. “It was just something that I did during training camp [in 2013], just strained my hip flexor real bad and it just bothered me the whole entire year. I just feel I had the offseason [in 2014] to go in and rehab and get my hip back strong, and it just felt great. Even near the end of the 2013 year, I was starting to play better, because my body was starting to feel better. It was just a point of having the time to have rehab go on, and go from there.”

The cornerback had a bounceback year with the Cardinals in 2014. There, he played for new Jets coach Todd Bowles, who was Arizona’s defensive coordinator. When Bowles took the job with the Jets, it gave Cromartie another reason to seek a reunion with the team.

Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan revamped the secondary during the first week of free agency, bringing back Darrelle Revis and Cromartie and signing cornerback Buster Skrine and safety Marcus Gilchrist. Revis and Cromartie played together from 2010 to 2012 for the Jets.

Cromartie had his best year with the team in 2012 when Revis suffered a season-ending knee injury. But his play slipped in 2013 as the hip injury bothered him. He believes he proved that was a one-year blip by the way he played last season in Arizona.

“I think the biggest thing was to prove to everybody that when I’m healthy, I can play at a very high level — 2013 was not a healthy year for me,” he said. “My biggest thing was just coming into the 2014 season and showing that I still can play at a very, very, very high level. I don’t think my age [31 next month] plays into anything that goes on. Either you can play the position or you can’t. I just felt like 2013 was an injury-plagued year for me. 2014 was a healthier year for me. So that helped me out a lot, and I was just able to go out and play how I wanted to.”

Pro Football Focus rated Cromartie the 45th-best cornerback out of 108 who played at least 25 percent of their team’s snaps last season. Quarterbacks completed 59.9 percent of passes thrown to players Cromartie was covering. He only gave up two touchdown passes, both to Denver’s Peyton Manning.

When the Jets signed Revis to a five-year, $70 million contract, some thought that would rule out adding Cromartie. But Maccagnan made it work. Cromartie’s deal is for four years and $32 million, with a chance for him to earn $35 million, according to a source. He will earn $7 million in 2015. It is unclear how much guaranteed money is in the deal, leaving the possibility the Jets could move on midway through the deal without serious salary cap implications.

“It ended up working out for the best,” Cromartie said. “Everyone got what they needed and what they wanted.”

Skrine figures to be the team’s nickel cornerback with Revis and Cromartie on the outside. He said he is fine with whatever role the Jets put him in.

“I think we have the potential of being great,” Skrine, formerly with the Browns, said of the Jets’ new-look secondary. “I think it’s definitely going to be a bright spot on the team.”

Speedy wide receiver Denarius Moore is scheduled to visit the Jets on Thursday, according to a source.