By now, Rex Ryan surely has come to grips with a most sobering reality, that where there is smoke around Darrelle Revis, there is fire, and there isn’t a Rextinguisher in sight.
When Revis shows up today at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Circus for his awkward reunion with his coach and team, either he will find Ryan bound and gagged and tied to a chair in GM John Idzik’s office, or hemming and hawing over the trade whispers that he swore he never heard even when they became a rolling thunder, or completely in the dark, a lame duck coach stripped of his power, no longer the big, bad, bold, braggadocious voice in the decision-making process.
The looming trade to Tampa Bay of the NFL’s best cornerback, if executed, would serve as another reminder of ruinous philosophical differences between a GM and a head coach with entirely different visions and agendas.
Goodbye, Revis Island.
Hello, Ryan Island.
Stranded by Woody Johnson, a human Band-Aid who won’t be able to stop the bleeding. With Revis, or without Revis. And that’s the point.
You trade your best player when the owner does not want to pay his best player. You trade your best player when you have gaping holes all over the place, from franchise quarterback to pass rusher to guard to tight end to wide receiver to Wildcat quarterback. You trade your best player when you reach the conclusion it is unwise to pay any cornerback, even this cornerback, $15 million a year, when you know full well that your team won’t be playing in the first New York Super Bowl until you first and foremost find your franchise quarterback, and then plug the bountiful leaks on the ship that be sinking.
The Bucs need Revis, and Revis needs the Bucs, because the bucks stop there. The Bucs need Revis because they believe they are ready to make their move, and who better than Revis to deal with Drew Brees and Matt Ryan twice a year? The Jets need a lot more than Revis to deal with Tom Brady twice a year.
It takes two to tango, and it is time for Idzik to dance.
If for no other reason than to stave off an inevitable Revis-vs.-Jets distraction.
Idzik has not blinked, has been as deliberate and calculated as advertised, has waited for Revis to rehab his knee, the only smart play he could make. He hasn’t let them see him sweat over the nightmare scenario in which Revis walks after the season with no compensation in return, confident a healing Revis would bring some salivating or desperate suitor, either now, or later.
But with the NFL Draft a mere 11 days away, the future is now to make a deal. A deal that would, at bare minimum, give the Jets Tampa Bay’s 13th pick to lump with their own ninth pick.
When Revis leaves the Hospital For Special Surgery in the morning and treks out to Florham Park, it will slap him in the face when he scans the locker room that a new day has dawned in Jetville. And it’s always darkest before the dawn. Bart Scott? Gone. Mike DeVito? Gone. Sione Pouha? Gone. Shonn Greene? Gone. All of them lockered right near him. LaRon Landry? Gone. Calvin Pace? Gone. Dustin Keller? Gone. Yeremiah Bell? Gone. Eric Smith? Matt Slauson? Gone. Brandon Moore? Going. Bryan Thomas? Going. Tim Tebow? Still here? Are you kidding me? But going, sing Hallelujah. No more silly sermons from the top to Pray Like A Jet. And wouldn’t it be nice if Bucs coach Greg Schiano would consent to take Tebow off the Jets’ hands and use him to, oh, I don’t know, crash somebody’s Victory Formation?
Revis tearing his ACL in September was a blessing in disguise for him in that it spared him most of the Buttfumbled season. If he believes Mark Sanchez can get him back to a third AFC Championship game, then he is the only one. Knowing Sanchez or David Garrard are the favorites to quarterback the 2013 Jets ought to make $15 million and two reasons why Revis will embrace the greener pastures in Tampa, if he hasn’t already.
Knowing Ryan either misled him, or was powerless to sway Woody Johnson, would be another. Knowing the owner never had any intention of showing him the money would be yet another.
Goodbye, Revis Island.
Hello, Ryan Island.
steve.serby@nypost.com