Darrelle Revis says the Jets’ toughest opponent is the Jets.
After enduring a season ultimately destroyed by locker room turmoil, the cornerback said yesterday the team needs to start over with its animosity focused outward.
“Let’s get to not destroying ourselves, let’s try to destroy other teams by game planning and doing what we need to do,” Revis told ESPN at the Pro Bowl.
Speaking after AFC practice in Hawaii, Revis said the Jets and coach Rex Ryan didn’t react quickly enough to the us-against-us mentality.
“There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, that I think if we had addressed it [at] the time being, then everything would have been cool, we could have moved on,” Revis told NFL Network. “But obviously we didn’t and the season kind of spiraled late.”
The Jets lost their last three games, lowlighted by Santonio Holmes getting benched in the season finale after arguing with teammates in the huddle. They finished 8-8, out of the playoffs for the first time in Ryan’s three years.
“After the season we talked, and basically he didn’t know a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes,” Revis said of Ryan. “There was just so much stuff, and I’m not going to get into it because some of the stuff is really deep.
“He didn’t know a lot of the things, and he wanted people to say things to him, but obviously it didn’t come out. It came out on the field and so forth.”
After the season, LaDainian Tomlinson said the Jets’ locker-room relationships were the worst he has seen in his 11-year NFL career.
Revis said the team needs to address that strife the first time it meets to prepare for 2012.
“When we come in there for OTAs, have a player meeting,” Revis told NFLN. “The leaders need to step up, talk to everybody in the building, and just say, ‘Hey, man, look. This is our goal this year, this is what we need to accomplish, let’s not get into the bickering or the frustration because it brings a team down.’
“We failed, we failed. I mean, we were here, expectations were high, and then it just trickled down to us not making the playoffs.”
Revis said he remains confident in quarterback Mark Sanchez, despite clashes with Holmes and unnamed players reportedly questioning his work habits.
“Yeah, we are very confident. If you look at his career already, through three years, his stats have gone up every year, and the first two years he took us to the AFC Championship game,” Revis told NFLN. “We have a lot of confidence in him, we just need the right guys around him and just build around the guy.”