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The Darrelle Revis contact soap opera, which has been basically going on since he arrived with the team, provided us some more melodrama today.
As you all know by now, Revis was on the NFL Network, and was critical of the Jets brass over the trade rumors.
“I was speechless; I tweeted it out I was speechless. I was speechless because I didn’t get a phone call,” Revis told the NFL Network. “I know it’s a business — just call me; don’t have it lingering out there. I need answers and I’m not getting any. Just the fact that that was put out there instead of contacting your best player on the team. If that’s how you want to do business, then that’s fine.”
It’s interesting that Revis talks about how to do business, when his camp has taken the low road repeatedly on the contract front over the years – trashing the Jets in the press, especially the owner and GM.
So now he’s the moral police for how to handle things in an appropriate fashion?
First of all, we don’t even know where the reporter got the story from that the Jets want to trade Revis.
“I’ve talked to some people today who say that Woody Johnson is very interested in trading Darrelle Revis,” Jason LaCanfora said on Showtime in January.
Owners have many conversations – he probably floated the idea of trading Revis since he might not want to pay him what he wants after this year (when he can become a free agent).
Is that such a bad thing?
And somebody, either from the building, or from one of the GM interviews, leaked it to La Canfora.
I just don’t see what the big deal is here if the owner said to somebody, or a few people – “Hey, we might not be able to pay him when his contract is up, so maybe we need to trade him before it’s too late.”
It’s not a big deal and they owe Revis no explanation into that thinking, especially since his camp has acted in such a sleazy fashion, especially in 2010.
Just go back and look at the clips from the spring and summer of 2010 – the Revis’ camp was in the gutter – constant leaks to reporter’s friends making Woody, Mike and company look really bad. It was ugly.
Agents Neil Schwartz and Jon Feinsod have a lot of friends in the media because they constantly give them information, scoops, they can use. They know how to play the game.
So when you see NBC’s Mike Florio tweet today, “Be careful not to take this Revis quote out of context,” you get the sense he’s helping out his friends Schwartz and Feinsod.
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
There are a number of reporters who refuse to criticize Revis at all because they don’t want to be thrown off the Schwartz-Feinsod information gravy train.
Revis is scheduled to make $6 million this year, in essentially the last year of his contract.
There are reports he wants a new contract like the deal DE Mario Williams got in Buffalo last year – six-years, $100 million with $50 million guaranteed.
“I don’t think this kid is ever going to be happy, financially,” ESPN’s Andrew Brandt said. “I think he and his representation have made it clear to the Jets and probably anyone else who asks, it’s not enough to be the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL today or even NFL history.”
Look, I understand that Woody might not be the best owner in the league, but you can understand that he’s at his wit’s end with this non-stop Revis contract stuff. This is the fourth debacle – as a rookie, in 2010, last spring and now this.
So Woody might just want to move on, and get something for him now, as opposed to nothing for him, when he can walk a year from now.
Revis is no victim here, even if he likes to paint himself as one.