As is always the case in the NFL when a team desperately needs a player and a player desperately needs a paycheck, the star holdout and his team finally came to agreement just in time: Darrelle Revis and the Jets are finally together again. If it felt to you like a star-crossed couple being kept away by feuding parents, well, Rex Ryan thought the same thing: “It was like a boyfriend and girlfriend but the parents won’t let you get together,” Ryan said. “That was kind of how I felt. He wanted to play, I wanted him to play, but for some reason it wasn’t happening.” We are not going to extend that metaphor.
The deal is reportedly for four years, $46 million, with $32 million in guarantees. That’s $11 million more guaranteed than he had before, which is probably worth taking a month off from training camp. Particularly when he got to wear a cool Afro disguise.
So, the team is now together, more or less, and there will be an awfully celebratory episode of Hard Knocks this week. It turns out that it was a lot of ink and Intertubes space wasted on nothing but Revis wearing funny wigs and sleeping a little later than his teammates. He has his new deal, and in less than a week, the Jets will be on the field, playing actual games that matter. That will be a lot more fun to write and read about.