WOODY YOU GOT PLAYED
Bringing Darrelle back costs Jet owner way more than $39M he paid him
Darrelle Revis placed the call just past 8 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2015, with one question: Do we have a deal with the Jets? A few weeks after becoming a champion with the Patriots, the NFL’s biggest mercenary of this generation was ready to squeeze more money out of the one man who he knew would be willing to overpay for his services again.
Nearly two months after Woody Johnson erred in revealing that he’d “love to have Darrelle back,” the cornerback was eager to cash in before the official start of free agency in 2015.
It would be 17 more days before NFL investigators descended upon the Jets facility to question general manager Mike Maccagnan and others about possible tampering.
Johnson’s words at that December press conference came to symbolize the tampering that ultimately prompted a $100,000 fine, but backchannel discussions with the Jets in February set the foundation for a Revis reunion.
Team officials in stealth mode communicated with Revis, Inc., through private cell phones and face-to-face covert meetings at the 2015 Scouting Combine rather than make calls from the team’s landlines at their Florham Park facility. No paper trails were a must.
Johnson, the driving force behind bringing back Revis to right a wrong in his mind, endorsed all of it.
It turned out to be a colossal mistake by the Jets owner.
Revis, mired in controversy after a sketchy Pittsburgh street fight a little more than a week ago, has made Johnson look like a fool.
Revis turned himself into Pittsburgh police on Friday night after being charged with four first-degree felonies and a misdemeanor stemming from the ugly incident that resulted in two people being knocked unconscious around 2:30 am on a street corner.
Rumblings on One Jets Drive are that the aging cornerback didn’t throw a punch. Revis, Inc., has told team officials that one or more of Revis’ goons (aka “friends”) cold-cocked the two guys, who approached the cornerback in the wee hours of Feb. 12.
An 11-second video that surfaced Sunday night, via TMZSports.com, shows two men knocked out cold. An unknown man, who is offcamera, claims responsibility for the handiwork.
“I knocked both of these motherf---s out,” the man said. “Both of them. They both sleeping. Shut up before I knock your a-- out next.”
It is absolutely not Revis’ voice, which proves very little. Was this Revis’ “fall guy” (See: Cris Carter’s School of Taking One for the Team)? Was Revis standing next to this unknown man? Did Revis flee the scene?
Revis’ new attorney, Robert DelGreco, Jr., released a statement to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday night in the wake of this video: “Darrelle Revis absolutely, categorically and positively did not knock out anyone, did not conspire with anyone to commit an assault, did not say ‘shut up before I knock your (expletive) out next’ and surely did not ‘rob’ another of a cell phone. The voice and admissions made on the video are not that of Darrelle Revis. We have no doubt but that further investigation relative to the clothing and voice verification will corroborate the above assertions.” Revis, whose preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday, had already embarrassed Johnson with his inconsistent effort and poor production on the field last season. Now, he’s embarrassed the owner with these late-night shenanigans. Fancy lawyer tricks and no smoking gun will likely lead to reduced charges, at the very least, but Revis doesn’t get a free pass.
This isn’t his first rodeo. He’s not a naïve rookie. He’s a 10-year veteran, who should have more sense than to be wandering the streets at 2:30 in the morning. Where was he? What bar was he at? What was he doing a half hour after the bars closed? Did he escalate matters by grabbing the stranger’s cell phone and chucking it into the street?
Did his henchmen intervene and “solve” the problem?
Nothing good happens after midnight, let alone 2:30 a.m.
Revis might not have initiated this mess, but it certainly appears as if he exacerbated it. Either way, this is a distraction that his employers (for now) don’t need.
Johnson, who has paid this player nearly $100 million through the years, brought him back to help revive his organization. He brought him back to put a face on his lost franchise.
Johnson paid him $39 million in full guarantees — or more than twice as much as any other team was willing to dole out — because he believed in Revis. He trusted Revis.
Revis gladly took the money, just as he always has.
It’s hard to feel bad for a billionaire, but Johnson deserved better. He tried to do the right thing, but invested in the wrong man.
Revis doesn’t care about Johnson. Never has. Never will.