Content available exclusively for subscribers
You know what is getting really old? Giants players and coaches being asked by reporters why the Jets get more attention than the Giants.
The latest was Osi Umenyiora.
“At the end of the day, man, we do things a little different out here. We go out on the football field and play. The Jets, they’re a good football team themselves, but they have a lot of things going on that a lot people are interested in. They’re more interested in that than us going out there and actually winning the Super Bowl.”
This is getting tedious.
First of all, who cares about off-season attention? It’s irrelevant.
And the Giants obviously got a ton of attention for winning the Super Bowl for a nice chunk of time after the season, and rightfully so.
Then it died down, and in late March, the Jets made the Tim Tebow trade.
Based on a poll by ESPN, Tebow is most popular athlete in the United States.
He now works in Florham Park, New Jersey, and who knows how this whole Tebow-Mark Sanchez scenario is going to play out.
If you are trying to sell papers this off-season, of course you are going to write a little bit more about Tebow-Sanchez, than the Giants picking David Wilson in the first round, or trading for Keith Rivers.
But who cares who gets more media attention in March-June? The off-season means so little. It’s all about Sunday’s in the fall and early winter.
And you know what is really dumb about this whole angle?
Reporters keep running up the Giants players and asking them why the Jets are getting more attention. But who are the people giving the Jets more attention – the media.
So they are creating this angle themselves, and then getting the Giants to rip the Jets because of the disproportionate coverage.
If the media sees this is a problem, then they should do something about it – write more Giants stories.
The shelf life of this story is just about up.
But you know why reporters continually bring this up? It’s because they don’t want to get into the minutia of football, a somewhat complex sport. Writing this kind of nonsense is easy to write.
This sport is about blocking and tackling , not what team gets more words in the paper . . .
Gary Myers wrote about Darrelle Revis’ contract today – “As part of the contract, if he holds out, the Jets can extend the deal three years at modest numbers. If Revis plays out the contract, the Jets can’t franchise him in 2014. That means they would have to renegotiate next year because there is no way they will let him become an unrestricted free agent after the 2013 season.”
Let’s be honest, this contractual scenario isn’t going to scare Revis away from holding out. Do you really think the Jets are interested in forcing him into a three-year extension “at modest numbers?” No way. That would make matters worse. So this contractual clause is basically a paper tiger.
Like we’ve said many times, Revis is wrong on this one. The first three years of his deal, and this year is the third, is for around $40 million. Three years at an average of around of $13 million is more than fair. Is CB making that average now? If so, we’re not aware of it.
The time for a new Revis deal is after this season.
But the Revis’ camp is trying to get it now. And a holdout this summer is one of the only ways they have a chance of getting one, banking on the fact that Woody Johnson is so desperate to win this year that he won’t risk starting the season without his best player.
They think Mike Tannenbaum and Johnson will cave.
I’m not sure about that this time around.
(Premium will return by 9 pm on Thursday.)