Darrelle Revis: What’sThe Price for Being a Jets Fan?

When the NY Jets moved up in the 2007 draft to get Pittsburgh’s Darrelle Revis, few could have known just
mhow good a player he would turn out to be for them. In five injury free seasons he made the Pro Bowl four 
times, made All-Pro three times and won the 2009 AFC Defensive Player of the Year award. On 
September 5th, 2010 he was given a new contract with the Jets for four years and $32 million dollars. A nice pay day 
for what most at the time would have said was the premier corner in the National Football League. That 
season the Jets finished 11-5 and made it all the way to the AFC Championship game where they lost to the
 Steelers 24-19. Since then, Revis and the Jets haven’t fared as well.

In 2011 the team finished 8-8 after Rex Ryan’s third straight Super Bowl guarantee and didn’t even make the playoffs. Revis then tears his ACL in Week 3 of this past season against the Dolphins and thus sank the Titanic known as the New York Jets. Why did I choose the
 Titanic as a  reference? Because the Jets look more like a shipwreck than a professional football team!

The writing is on the wall here Jets Fans. Mike Tannenbaum is gone, so thankfully no one else is going to give $30 million more to Mark “I-Look-Like-I’ve-Lost-Interest” Sanchez, but the Jets unfortunately still have to pay for all 
the salary mistakes Tannenbaum and Woody Johnson have put their team under. John Idzik is
 renowned for his ability to do just that, but not in one year’s time people! The Jets over the course of the last five 
years have gone from a team with a world of potential to a team lacking even an identity. You can’t 
blame that on one man, but there is one man who can help us, and that man ladies and gentlemen, is Darrelle Revis.

Revis, even with a torn ACL, could cover most receivers better than half the corners in the NFL. He is in 
the same sentence as Deion Sanders and Charles Woodson, names that immortalize that position. He, meaning Revis, 
seems to agree with me. As the news reported in early February, Revis wants to be paid a whopping $16 million per year on his next contract, which would make him the highest paid defensive player in the NFL if it were to happen. Obviously no one in the organization wants to see Revis leave, but if his needs are to be paid at that price, is that too high a price to pay? The answer to that is clearly YES. Even for most teams not under 
salary cap restrictions, a $16 million a year player is a tough pill to swallow financially. For the Jets? They would 
literally choke on it. Ever get a pill stuck in your throat? Nasty right? If New York signs Revis, that taste plus a 
little dirt is what Jets fans will taste until his contract expires.

Let’s re-write the question then. Not “Is the price too high for Darrelle?” but to “At what price can we sell 
Darrelle?” For those Jets fans who tried to punch me through the computer for such blasphemy, think about this: it’s going to be a long season with, or without Revis, so go get some ice for that hand, get some tums for that heartburn, and maybe some aspirin for that hangover. For those of you still with me, you’re probably asking “Has it really come to this?” The answer, in a word, is “Yes.” Despite the most recent news that the Jets have released Bart Scott, Calvin Pace, Jason Smith, Eric Smith, and Josh Baker, the Jets are just barely under the cap, and leaves them basically stranded with laughably very little money to play with during the free agency period.

So again I ask you, if you were to sell your best player and thus give your team a chance to start – wait for it Jets fans – ”rebuilding” for the next regime, doesn’t that seem like an intelligent thing to do? Doesn’t it? Revis could garner a hefty price for those teams thinking he’s the missing piece. It would also benefit the Jets in that they wouldn’t be burying themselves in a monster contract they have no right to even offer the man.

Now, I will ask all you football fans to tweet me your answers. In the end, at what price would you accept a trade for Revis, and at what price are you willing to pay for being a Jets fan?

You can find me at @JFerguson631