C
Cr122
Guest
Darelle Revis playing hardball
Seeking New Deal, Jets’ Revis Is Absent, but a Presence
By GREG BISHOP
CORTLAND, N.Y. — All Sunday afternoon, the Jets carried pillows, monogrammed luggage and flat-screen televisions into their dormitory, stocking this temporary training camp abode with every last item except the belongings of their best player, cornerback Darrelle Revis.
He skipped the camp arrival and team conditioning test, and still dominated all discussions with confirmation of his holdout. In fact, both sides dug in deeper Sunday.
The Jets held their first team meeting without Revis and said his camp rejected three offers in the past three days. Teammates said they could win without him. Revis’s representatives, who believe the opposite, indicated he would not report to camp until he reached a new deal.
One agent, Jonathan Feinsod, said: “We waited until the last possible minute with hope of getting something done. Darrelle will not be there.”
General Manager Mike Tannenbaum said, “It’s hard to say what’s going to happen next.”
So the Jets find themselves saddled with the greatest of expectations, brimming with optimism, so confident in their Super Bowl aspirations that they allowed HBO to film training camp. Teammates echoed the sentiment of receiver Braylon Edwards all afternoon when he said, “Anything short of the obvious is failure.”
Amid the peddled positives, Revis’s absence stood out Sunday. The Jets ended weeks of silence between the camps late Thursday night, with a phone call to gauge whether Revis planned on holding out.
Between then and Sunday, Tannenbaum said, the Jets made three offers — a long-term deal, a short-term solution and a face-to-face meeting to talk further. All three, Tannenbaum said, were “rebuffed.”
The Jets and Revis agree that he outplayed his current contract. They also agree that the contract has three years remaining. The disagreement centers on total compensation.
Revis wants to be paid more than Nnamdi Asomugha, the Oakland cornerback who signed a three-year, $45.3 million deal before last season. Revis, a player whom Coach Rex Ryan routinely calls the best defensive player in the N.F.L., wants to be compensated, not just complimented.
Those close to Revis described his holdout as a deliberate, thorough, thought-out decision, one he did not reach overnight. Revis did hold out before his rookie year, but he has not been a locker-room headache.
He is not, as defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said, “the kind of guy who brings negative attention on himself.”
But with three years remaining on Revis’s contract, his leverage consists almost entirely of his absence. He is scheduled to make $1 million this season, or less than seven defensive backs on the Jets (he did receive some $15 million in the first three years of his deal, though).
Teammates said that Revis also paid close attention to what happened to running back Leon Washington last season. Revis remains friends with Washington, and last August, after his camp holdout lasted only a few hours, Washington reported to camp without a new deal in place.
Washington sustained a gruesome season-ending leg injury in October and was traded in the off-season. Every Jets player took note of that situation, linebacker David Harris said.
Cornerback Dwight Lowery added: “Every player thinks about how that went down. It showed that you can never predict the future. You have to get what you can, when you can. Just hearing that they’ll take care of you isn’t enough.”
By holding out, Revis effectively turned his salary for 2011 and 2012, a total of $20 million, from guaranteed to nonguaranteed. He is also subject to a daily $16,000 fine, and if he does not show up by Aug. 10, he will lose an accrued season.
Given all of that, Revis still thought that playing this season for $1 million presented the biggest risk of all. He has scoffed at the amount of guaranteed money (very little) the Jets have offered. He knows that this is an uncapped season, that next season is not guaranteed. That only adds to the uncertainty.
“We don’t know if there’s going to be a season next year,” fullback Tony Richardson said, alluding to a work stoppage. “I’m sure that plays into it. That’s on the horizon. We can’t act like it’s not there. All signs are pointing toward a lockout.”
That said, Richardson is entering his 16th season, and in none of his previous stops can he recall a holdout that actually affected his team in a given season. He understands the hype, understands why Revis’s absence is a story, but Richardson added, “It always gets worked out.”
Most other players arrived Sunday. Edwards wore an impressive beard. Running back LaDainian Tomlinson had a Jets tattoo inked on his calf. Mark Sanchez pronounced his surgically repaired knee recovered. A circus act, Jenkins called the scene.
Ryan and Tannenbaum received their own extensions in recent months, as did left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Revis, Harris and center Nick Mangold, among others, want new deals.
Asked about off-field extensions, Mangold joked, “I hope they’re working down the totem pole.”
Seeking New Deal, Jets’ Revis Is Absent, but a Presence
By GREG BISHOP
CORTLAND, N.Y. — All Sunday afternoon, the Jets carried pillows, monogrammed luggage and flat-screen televisions into their dormitory, stocking this temporary training camp abode with every last item except the belongings of their best player, cornerback Darrelle Revis.
He skipped the camp arrival and team conditioning test, and still dominated all discussions with confirmation of his holdout. In fact, both sides dug in deeper Sunday.
The Jets held their first team meeting without Revis and said his camp rejected three offers in the past three days. Teammates said they could win without him. Revis’s representatives, who believe the opposite, indicated he would not report to camp until he reached a new deal.
One agent, Jonathan Feinsod, said: “We waited until the last possible minute with hope of getting something done. Darrelle will not be there.”
General Manager Mike Tannenbaum said, “It’s hard to say what’s going to happen next.”
So the Jets find themselves saddled with the greatest of expectations, brimming with optimism, so confident in their Super Bowl aspirations that they allowed HBO to film training camp. Teammates echoed the sentiment of receiver Braylon Edwards all afternoon when he said, “Anything short of the obvious is failure.”
Amid the peddled positives, Revis’s absence stood out Sunday. The Jets ended weeks of silence between the camps late Thursday night, with a phone call to gauge whether Revis planned on holding out.
Between then and Sunday, Tannenbaum said, the Jets made three offers — a long-term deal, a short-term solution and a face-to-face meeting to talk further. All three, Tannenbaum said, were “rebuffed.”
The Jets and Revis agree that he outplayed his current contract. They also agree that the contract has three years remaining. The disagreement centers on total compensation.
Revis wants to be paid more than Nnamdi Asomugha, the Oakland cornerback who signed a three-year, $45.3 million deal before last season. Revis, a player whom Coach Rex Ryan routinely calls the best defensive player in the N.F.L., wants to be compensated, not just complimented.
Those close to Revis described his holdout as a deliberate, thorough, thought-out decision, one he did not reach overnight. Revis did hold out before his rookie year, but he has not been a locker-room headache.
He is not, as defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said, “the kind of guy who brings negative attention on himself.”
But with three years remaining on Revis’s contract, his leverage consists almost entirely of his absence. He is scheduled to make $1 million this season, or less than seven defensive backs on the Jets (he did receive some $15 million in the first three years of his deal, though).
Teammates said that Revis also paid close attention to what happened to running back Leon Washington last season. Revis remains friends with Washington, and last August, after his camp holdout lasted only a few hours, Washington reported to camp without a new deal in place.
Washington sustained a gruesome season-ending leg injury in October and was traded in the off-season. Every Jets player took note of that situation, linebacker David Harris said.
Cornerback Dwight Lowery added: “Every player thinks about how that went down. It showed that you can never predict the future. You have to get what you can, when you can. Just hearing that they’ll take care of you isn’t enough.”
By holding out, Revis effectively turned his salary for 2011 and 2012, a total of $20 million, from guaranteed to nonguaranteed. He is also subject to a daily $16,000 fine, and if he does not show up by Aug. 10, he will lose an accrued season.
Given all of that, Revis still thought that playing this season for $1 million presented the biggest risk of all. He has scoffed at the amount of guaranteed money (very little) the Jets have offered. He knows that this is an uncapped season, that next season is not guaranteed. That only adds to the uncertainty.
“We don’t know if there’s going to be a season next year,” fullback Tony Richardson said, alluding to a work stoppage. “I’m sure that plays into it. That’s on the horizon. We can’t act like it’s not there. All signs are pointing toward a lockout.”
That said, Richardson is entering his 16th season, and in none of his previous stops can he recall a holdout that actually affected his team in a given season. He understands the hype, understands why Revis’s absence is a story, but Richardson added, “It always gets worked out.”
Most other players arrived Sunday. Edwards wore an impressive beard. Running back LaDainian Tomlinson had a Jets tattoo inked on his calf. Mark Sanchez pronounced his surgically repaired knee recovered. A circus act, Jenkins called the scene.
Ryan and Tannenbaum received their own extensions in recent months, as did left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Revis, Harris and center Nick Mangold, among others, want new deals.
Asked about off-field extensions, Mangold joked, “I hope they’re working down the totem pole.”