Of course it is the owner who has final say on whether to pay his star player, whether to make him a $100 Million Man, or something close. So Darrelle Revis is right on the money when he says, “It starts from the top. It starts with Woody Johnson.”
Revis can choose to believe Woody Johnson is cheaper than Fred Wilpon — until he puts his money where his mouth is — if he likes. But going public on NFL Network firing the cheap shot at Johnson and challenging the owner to empty The Bank of Florham Park is hardly the way to convince him to make you a Jet For Life.
If that is what Revis truly desires.
He would have been better off remaining speechless if he does.
Andrea Kremer: “Do you feel that Woody Johnson doesn’t want to pay you to keep you on the team?”
Revis: “That might be a situation. That might be something. That might be an option.”
The conspiracist in me wonders whether Revis is either plotting an Escape From New York, or is now resigned to one.
Once his torn ACL is completely rehabilitated — and it won’t be too much longer, we have been told by the Revis side — there will be legitimate Super Bowl contending teams who will be salivating to trade for the best cornerback in the game and show him the money.
If I’m Revis, I’d surely want to play for one of those teams.
A lot more than I’d want to play for the team that left him speechless and has a lame duck head coach and a quarterback problem and has no chance to win a Super Bowl any time soon.
And I’d want to play for an owner I trust a lot more than the one I no longer trust. If I ever really trusted him.
I have liked Revis from the day he walked in the door. But I think he is being too sensitive here. Revis says he understands it’s a business, but why was he left speechless when he learned of a report stating that Johnson was amenable to trading him before he could walk away from the Jets after the 2013 season? “Just call me … If that’s how you want to do business, then that’s fine,” Revis said.
A report, by the way, Johnson denied on the very day the Jets introduced new general manager John Idzik.
The landscape has changed, both for Revis and the Jets. This isn’t 2010, when Jets fans shouted “Please Pay Revis” every time Johnson and former GM Mike Tannenbaum were within earshot. Of course there are Jets fans now who consider Revis the franchise’s best player since Curtis Martin — if not Joe Namath — and will be apoplectic if Revis is traded.
But paying Revis is no longer the no-brainer it used to be, and he won’t be able to whip Jets Nation into a lather over his circumstance as easily as he did the last time.
Quite simply, there will be no possible way for the Jets to fill the myriad of holes on their roster if they break the bank for Revis.
I have no doubt Revis has plenty of elite football left, but he will be 29 at the start of the 2014 season.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, especially with a class act like Revis, but the Jets need to rebuild.
And you can’t blame Revis for feeling betrayed by an alleged promise by Tannenbaum to remove the Band-Aid that nearly caused Revis to hold out last summer. The Band-Aid that arrived in the third year of the four-year, $46 million deal that paid him $32.5 million guaranteed in the initial two years.
The conspiracist in me also wonders whether Johnson fired Tannenbaum in part because it makes it easier for him to renege on the promise Revis swears Tannenbaum made to him.
“If I do get traded, I’m not going to sit here and pout and cry,” Revis said. “It’s up to them and management what they’re going to do … I’m a Jet until they tell me I’m not a Jet.”
Then Revis laughed. At the end of the day, he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. Just not Woody Johnson’s bank.
steve.serby@nypost.com