The Jets Got What They Deserved in Revis

.@nyjets inform Darrelle Revis of his impending release: https://t.co/taWpC81jH2 pic.twitter.com/PXZ7Dprn6s

— NFL (@NFL) March 1, 2017

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This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Revis Island once might have been a luxury, 5-star, all inclusive resort, but never underestimate the Jets’ ability to turn it into Oak Island. This poor, downtrodden, hapless franchise watched the best player they’ve ever had (don’t Joe Namath me; he’s the single worst NFL player in the Hall of Fame) shoot his way out of town, go to Tampa for a year, get sent to New England and win a championship. So, like a jilted wife who couldn’t stand to see her ex be happy in the arms of another woman, the Jets obsessed, plotted, schemed and cheated to get him back. Only to realize way too late he gave the best years of his life to someone else. The Darrelle Revis they got back was fat, lazy, erectile dysfunctional and completely not into them.

And once again the joke, as always, is on Gang Green.  By the admission of their own house man Manish Mehta, the Jets worked out an elaborate scheme of spycraft to reach out to win Revis back while he was still under contract to the Patriots. A scheme that cost them $39 million for two seasons. Buying them 6 interceptions, 14 passes defensed. Producing a total of 15 wins. And at least that many long touchdown passes surrendered in solo coverage. Plus ten times as many missed tackles as Revis clung to blockers rather than try to shed them and … I don’t know … actually try to make a play.

Revis used the Jets like the brilliant businessman he always was. But they’re not victims. You can’t rape the willing. They knew what they were getting from the first five or six times he screwed them over in contract talks, and they went in anyway. It was the ultimate triumph of optimism over experience, and exactly the kind of thing terrible management does when they’re more worried about getting the back page of the tabloids for a day than the product they put on the field. Bad franchises doing bad franchise things.

So congrats, Jets. Take a bow for your brilliant tampering, Woody Johnson. And stick tap to the commissioner who only fined you 100 grand for stealing away a supposedly once-in-a-generation player. In the long run, getting Revis back was its own punishment. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving team.