Buy a Ferrari and use it only as your train station commuter car.
Have a dinner date with Kate Upton, and take her to Wendy’s.
Join Augusta National and use only the practice facility.
Sometimes people do curious things.
The Buccaneers, for example, traded a first-round draft pick to the Jets for cornerback Darrelle Revis and signed him to a $96 million contract, and they barely are letting him to his job.
You know what created “Revis Island?” Revis playing suffocating man-to-man defense, that’s what.
You know what the Buccaneers are doing with Revis? Playing him predominately in zone defenses, not utilizing his best skills as a shut-down, man-to-man coverage cornerback.
That’s like asking David Ortiz to lay down a bunt every other at-bat. It makes no sense, but it enlightens you to why the Buccaneers take an 0-7 record into Sunday’s game at 7-1 Seattle.
Revis, who forced his way out of the Jets locker room because he knew they never were going to pay him the money he wanted, left the Jets to flee from the circus. He’s come to find that the circus left Florham Park, N.J., and followed him to Tampa, where — aside from the coaches’ misuse of his talents — there has been quarterback and coaching unrest along with a rash of dangerous staph infections to go along with those seven losses.
“He left the circus and he joined the circus,” former Buccaneers Pro Bowl safety and current FOX Sports NFL analyst John Lynch told The Post.
Lynch, who has called four of Tampa Bay’s games this season for FOX, is as perplexed as many other analysts about the way Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano and his staff have been using Revis.
“ ‘Revis Island’ is a caricature, a nickname, but he earned it because that’s what he did under Rex [Ryan, Jets coach], and he did it as well as anyone,” Lynch said. “You go and pay 96 million bucks for Darrelle Revis. When the game is on the line they have to utilize this guy’s skills. After they gave him all that money, use him.
“I would think it would behoove the Buccaneers to say, ‘OK, Darrelle’s got that guy. We’re taking him out of the equation, let’s focus on everybody else.’ ”
That is the way Ryan used Revis with the Jets, turning the cornerback loose on the opposition’s best receiver and making it a 10-on-10 game.
Lynch said he has spoken to Revis.
“I sense frustration,” Lynch said, “but he’s a pro, and he’s not going to cause a stink.”
Interestingly, in a Friday radio interview, Revis, perhaps trying to calm the storm, said the reason he’s played so little man-to-man is because his surgically-repaired left knee hasn’t been completely healed.
“Earlier in the year, I didn’t have the explosion to play press,” Revis said. “The receiver would just run the [vertical] 9-route on me, and I didn’t have the stamina to do that play in and play out, especially playing press.”
Curious that this suddenly was mentioned seven losses into the season, though. The timing smells fishy.
Schiano told reporters in Tampa last week that playing more man with Revis is “something I’ve looked hard at,” but he did not exactly commit to it.
NFL Network analyst Darren Sharper, a former 14-year NFL safety who played for the Packers, Vikings and Saints and made five Pro Bowls, has watched the Revis-Buccaneers saga from afar and scratched his head.
“It reminds me of when Nnamdi Asomugha went to Philadelphia from Oakland,” Sharper told The Post. “He was one of the top cover corners in the league with Oakland, and Philadelphia put him in a different defense and he didn’t have the same production.”
Indeed, after making the Pro Bowl four times with the Raiders and building a reputation as one of the few true lock-down corners in the game, Asomugha fled for Philadelphia via free agency in 2011 and signed a five-year, $60 million contract — ironically a contract that first piqued Revis’ interest to be paid in that stratosphere.
The Eagles buried Asomugha in a zone coverage defensive system, diminished his dominance as a cover corner and he’s never been the same. He played every position in the Eagles’ secondary, the team went 12-20 from 2011-12 and he was released after last season. Asomugha signed a one-year $1.35 million contract this season with the 49ers, who have been rumored to be considering releasing him.
This should a cautionary tale for Revis that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.
“If he could go back to what he was and what he’s known as — a pure lock-down corner — you’ll start seeing the Darrelle Revis of old,” Sharper said.
But because he is coming off major knee surgery and is playing in a system not suited for his talents, it is fair to question whether we will ever see the Revis of old again.