Two years after a contentious holdout between Darrelle Revis and the Jets, the two sides might have to ready themselves for Round 2.
Revis, appearing at a charity function in Manhattan on Monday, said he is unsure whether he will hold out of training camp this summer in hopes of renegotiating his deal.
“I just don’t know,” Revis said before being honored by Big Brothers Big Sisters NYC. “I’m not saying I am going to hold out. I’m not saying I’m not going to hold out. I just don’t know. Right now my focus is being on the team.”
The Jets and the All-Pro cornerback agreed to a four-year, $46 million contract in 2010 after a 35-day holdout. There has been speculation Revis would hold out, though, because the contract was viewed as short-term fix and not a long-term solution by both sides. Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum called it an “intermediate step” at the time. There might be some disagreement over how short term the contract was intended to be.
Revis made $32.5 million over the past two years, but his compensation drops dramatically this year. He is scheduled to make $7.5 million in 2012 and $6 million in 2013. That is hardly market value for the best cornerback in football.
The 26-year-old (he turns 27 in July) did not want to get in depth about his contract at the charity event. Asked directly if he could rule out a holdout, he wouldn’t.
“I can’t sit here and say that,” he said. “Right now, it’s Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization. I can’t sit here and say I’m going to hold out because I don’t know. That time hasn’t come yet. That’s something we’re not thinking about right now. Right now we’re just thinking about me being a part of the team, being a leader for this team and getting ready for the season.”
The Jets tried to put a safeguard against another holdout in Revis’ deal, but it does not appear it will work. It is actually a seven-year contract that voids into a four-year deal if Revis does not miss any offseason team activities. Revis showed in 2010 he was willing to play hardball to get a deal done, and there is no reason to think he won’t test the Jets again.
Tannenbaum said he would not talk about Revis’ contract situation at a news conference last week.
“Darrelle’s under contract,” Tannenbaum said. “Darrelle’s obviously a really important part of our team. I look forward to the 2012 season and hopefully accomplishing a lot of great things together.”
Revis sounds like he’s going to be ready to talk about it sooner than Tannenbaum.
“My agents are going to do the best for me and try to do what’s best for me,” Revis said. “It’s my career and I’m in control of it what I can do. I know I’m under contract. We’ll hash that out when the time comes. I know things have come out and that’s that. If anything does happen in the future of me being here, I have two years left. If it’s for my future to be here, then it is. If it’s not, for me to be somewhere else, then it is. We’ll address that when the time comes.”
Earlier this month, Revis said the Jets locker room was in “disarray.” He said the team has been good since getting back together last week for offseason workouts. He clarified what he meant by “disarray.”
“The comment I said about being in disarray … it’s nothing to sugarcoat,” Revis said. “There was some things going on and everybody knew it. Everybody knew there were some things going on. I think that was a result of the season that we had. Previous seasons, being a part of this team, we stuck together. We stuck together and whatever the outcome was, even if we didn’t make the playoffs or if we did, guys stuck together. I just felt it needed to be said to everybody else that it was in disarray a little bit. There’s nothing wrong with that. We can pull it back together as a team and as a whole.”
Revis said Jets coach Rex Ryan put 2011 in the past in the team’s first meeting last week.
“Rex addressed it then, ‘Let’s sweep that under the rug, 2011. Let’s move forward. Let’s not get into point the fingers and all that stuff. Let’s stick together,’ ” Revis said. “I think that was important for him to let the team know and for everybody to just understand don’t do that, don’t do that because other problems occurred on the team.”