The Darrelle Revis holdout has reached its tenth day, and now that the Jets have rejected Revis’s most recent offer — presented to general manager Mike Tannenbaum at a diner in Roscoe, New York, because it’s halfway between Jets camp in Cortland and Revis’s agent’s home base in Rockland County — owner Woody Johnson has said his gut feeling is that Revis won’t play for the Jets this season. Don’t believe it.
To some degree, the Jets have painted themselves into a corner: After all, they first approached Revis in January about reworking his rookie contract — one that Mike Tannenbaum has admitted Revis has outplayed. And yes, Rex Ryan won’t shut up about how Revis is the best defensive player in the league. But the reason the Jets approached Revis, and the reason Ryan talked him up, is that Revis really may be the best defensive player in the league. And with that title comes a certain level of compensation.
Johnson’s taken a hard-line stand, but he knows as well as anyone that Revis deserves a big raise. And he also knows that Jets fans will never forgive management if they allow Revis to sit during meaningful games. But most of all, he knows the Jets desperately need Revis if they’re going to contend for that Super Bowl Ryan thinks they’re winning. And that’s why a deal will get done sometime before the season begins. NFL holdouts may seem scary when the owner of a team says his best player may miss the season, but that’s just talk. These things tend to work themselves out.
Maybe Revis won’t get Nnamdi Asomugha money — Pro Football Talk argues today that Asomugha’s contract wasn’t quite as bad as the Jets suggest, considering how much leverage Asomugha had at the time — but he’ll get his big raise eventually, with enough guaranteed money to make him happy.