Now that’s a misdirection play!

Desperate to keep his clean-cut all-American image intact, Dan Marino told no one but his wife that he had sired a baby with a co-worker, paying the mistress hush money and keeping his CBS Sports bosses — and even his longtime lawyer-agent — in the dark for seven years, sources told The Post yesterday.

“Danny did, as difficult as it was, tell his wife in 2005, when this occurred,” said a source close to Marino, referring to Claire Marino, who has six children with the Hall of Famer.

Marino, who has been a pregame analyst for CBS’s “The NFL Today” since 2003, stunned his Tiffany Network bosses by informing them of the tryst and secret love child after The Post told him the story was about to break.

He also kept his longtime lawyer-agent — who had negotiated his contracts with the Miami Dolphins and CBS for 30 years — in the dark about the bombshell deal that paid CBS Sports production assistant Donna Savattere millions of dollars and that was cut in 2005, the year their girl was born, a source close to the former quarterback said.

And during the seven long years that Marino kept the tawdry secret from the public and his superiors at CBS, he signed “numerous contracts” that kept him lucratively employed, the source noted.

“CBS was not involved in any way, shape or form back in 2005,” when Marino cut the deal with Savattere using another lawyer, the source said.

She bore him daughter Chloe in June of that year — four months after Marino was voted into the NFL’s Hall of Fame for a dazzling career in which he became the league’s all-time leading passer at the time of his 1999 retirement.

Marino confessed to CBS Sports about the baby scandal only on Wednesday — right after The Post told Marino it would be exposing the affair and love child, a source close to him said.

Wednesday was also the Marinos’ 28th wedding anniversary. “At that point, Danny went to CBS,” the source said.

A second source, one familiar with the situation within CBS, confirmed that account as “absolutely true.”

“The first they heard about it was Wednesday,” that source said.

Asked about that account, CBS Sports spokeswoman Jen Sabatelle said, “CBS Sports executives first learned of this yesterday.”

Marino, 51, then also informed his lawyer-agent, Marvin Demoff, of the deal, telling him he had employed other people to handle the payout to Savattere, now 44.

The Marino source said he believed Marino did not use Demoff to negotiate the payment agreement with Savattere or inform the lawyer of its existence because of “embarrassment” over his adultery and love child.

Marino’s blindsiding of CBS comes just days before the network is set to broadcast Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans — which will include extensive pre-game commentary from Marino and his colleagues.

Asked whether Marino’s job at CBS Sports was in jeopardy as a result of the scandal, the source answered, “No, it isn’t.”

And CBS Sports, in a statement, said, “Dan has said all there is to say on this matter and will be in his usual role on our broadcast Super Bowl Sunday.”

But the source familiar with CBS’s internal situation said there has been no discussion so far about Marino’s future at the network.

That source also scoffed at any suggestion that CBS was privy to the deal Marino cut with Savattere or participated monetarily in any way.

“It’s not the kind of arrangement they would be entering into at CBS Sports or be a part of,” that source said.

Marino issued a statement to The Post on Wednesday after being confronted with claims that he had fathered a child out of wedlock.

“This is a personal and private matter. I take full responsibility both personally and financially for my actions now as I did then,” it said.

“We mutually agreed to keep our arrangement private to protect all parties involved.”

Savattere confided to close friends that Marino was Chloe’s dad and even showed them photographs of her and Marino together in restaurants and clubs.

But when it came to filing legal papers, Savattere abided by the deal to keep her mouth shut about Marino being the daddy.

In 2009, a year after marrying former Lehman Brothers banking executive Nahill Younis, Savattere applied in Manhattan Supreme Court to change Chloe’s last name from Savattere to Younis.

In a signed and sworn statement, Savattere wrote, “The infant’s mother does not know the identity of the infant’s father, and no father is identified by the birth certificate.”

Attached to the name-change application was Chloe’s birth certificate — which made no mention of the identity of her biological dad.

Arthur Aidala, a prominent criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, said someone who lied in such a way on a sworn statement left themselves open to being prosecuted for perjury.

He said Savattere could have told the judge she was bound by a confidentiality agreement that prevented her from revealing the father’s name, but “you can’t lie — you can’t do that.”

Nancy Chemtob, Savattere’s lawyer for Chloe’s name change, declined to comment on her client’s misstatement.

Marino was spotted in New Orleans at pre-Super Bowl events looking unconcerned about the scandal, which could permanently damage his long-standing nice-guy reputation.

On Wednesday, less than an hour after The Post asked his representatives for comment, the handsome Marino appeared on CBS’s chat show “The Talk” and bantered easily with the women hosts.

When one of those hosts pointed out that “you are a happily married father of six,” the audience burst into enthusiastic applause for him — unaware there was actually a seventh kid about to be exposed.

Additional reporting by Larry Celona