Why 2016 Must Be Darrelle Revis' Last Season with the New York Jets

There was a time not too long ago when New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis had two outstanding talents: breaking up passes (also known as his job) and the ability to get paid. Now he's down to one.

At 31 years old, he’s agreed to five separate contracts with three different teams. The $118 million in straight cash (homey?) that’s collected in his bank account over 10 NFL seasons is a product of both his cornerback talent and the creative structure of those contracts. He was able to maximize his value on short-term deals with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then the New England Patriots, and in the process keep reeling in that sweet, sweet dough.

But eventually the gravy train was going to derail. That was always inevitable and something the Jets understood when they dumped another money avalanche on a then-30-year-old in 2015. They signed Revis to a five-year deal worth $70.1 million, with $39 million guaranteed.

Their aim was surely to get two or three solid years of top-tier play from Revis. That was never acknowledged publicly, but it didn’t need to be. The statement was in the details, as the guaranteed portion of Revis’ contract runs out after 2017.

Getting three more years of shutdown play from a guy who’s sealed off half the field for much of his career was the best-case scenario. What was the worst-case scenario?

The worst-case scenario is what’s actually happening with Revis. It’s also the reason why 2016 should be his final year with the Jets.

Alex Goodlett/Getty Images

Back in September, Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan was asked if the former anchor of his Jets defenses was indeed reaching the end.

He said what many were thinking at the time. Revis is expected and allowed to decline at his age, the thinking went, but a gradual fall would still put him among the league’s best corners for several more years.

“If he has [fallen], we know he's coming from the mountaintop,” Ryan said, via Darryl Slater of NJ.com. “So I don't know how far down he has slipped. In my opinion, I think he's a hell of a football player still. If he's coming down, he's coming down from the very, very top."

In theory, Ryan wasn’t wrong with that assessment.

If Revis was preparing to take a gentle roll down from his mountaintop, he’d still be able to neutralize top wide receivers. Maybe that wouldn’t be true every week or in every matchup. But the Jets would still see the old Revis often enough to trust him in one-on-one coverage on the outside. He could still be the extinguisher that puts out a red-hot receiver.

The problem is Revis hasn't taken a pleasant glide down from his snowy white cornerback mountain. No, his plunge has looked a lot like that time the cool dad at the park tried to go down the slide.

There’s been nothing gradual about Revis’ tumble. He went from being great to zooming past any generous application of the “good” label. He’s cratered spectacularly and can’t even be called average anymore either.

The lockdown corner for so many years is long gone, and now the Jets have only a walking impostor on the field who will collect $17 million in 2016.

It’s hard to tell exactly where rock bottom will be for Revis because that thud has been a moving target all season. But Week 8 seems like a pretty good guess for now. As Sam Monson of Pro Football Focus noted, Revis made personal history against the Cleveland Browns.

The worst kind of history:

Revis allowed 138 yards in coverage against the Browns. Wait, it gets worse: 101 of those yards came in just the first half when he was assigned to wide receiver Terrelle Pryor.

It’s true that Pryor has rapidly grown to become one of the league’s most promising and athletically gifted receivers. He’s had a remarkable journey from quarterback to receiver, and there was a hint of his coming quick rise back in August.

But just one year ago, none of that would have mattered against Revis.

Pryor is still a project player who was starting only his eighth career regular-season game at wide receiver. And across from him stood Revis, a cornerback who’s earned his many cash piles by slamming the door shut on the league’s greatest receiving talents. You know, the sort of premier pass-catchers who are selected in the first round to actually be receivers, unlike Pryor, who is playing the position for the first time at the age of 27.

Yet Revis was still left to only chase, flail and get eaten alive.

Matt Harmon of NFL.com documented Pryor's route chart against Revis. The result was a splatter of long lines, and it came with a strong stench of old-man failure:

Revis was targeted in coverage 13 times during just that one half, showing he now instills little fear in opposing quarterbacks. Revis Island is a warm and welcoming place complete with drinks served in coconuts.

That wasn’t just one game we can cast aside either. It was a historically awful afternoon for Revis during a season filled with creaky storm-door imitations.

The 2016 season started with Revis getting roasted by the Bengals’ A.J. Green in Week 1. He allowed 83 yards in coverage and a passer rating of 109.9. It was excruciating to watch but still possible to shrug off. Green has a habit of fitting cornerbacks with dunce caps, after all.

Then, just one week later, the five-time All Pro was torched again, and this time by a far less notable receiver. Buffalo Bills wideout Marquise Goodwin—who is perhaps better known for his long-jump skills—streaked by for an 84-yard touchdown.

Would Goodwin, Green and Pryor have sailed past Revis in his prime? Probably not, but that's the wrong question to ask.

Forget his prime, because both the Jets and anyone who understands how time works knew heading into 2016 that those days are a memory. Here’s a terrifying reality, though: We don’t need to compare Revis' 2016 play to his prime.

The comparison to a mere one year ago is bad enough.

Year	Total yards allowed	Yards allowed/game	Opposing QB rating
2015	583	41.6	56.5
2016	424	60.6	103.1

He’s giving up nearly 20 more yards in coverage per game. If that keeps up, Revis will blow past his total 2015 yards allowed during only the 10th game of his 2016 season. His passer rating allowed is also a staggering 46.6 points higher.

Usually, this is when the conversation would pivot toward the Jets still getting as much as possible out of Revis through a position switch to safety. That’s a common career-salvaging move for top cornerbacks who start fading in their early 30s.

The best recent example is surefire future Hall of Famer Charles Woodson. He excelled as a cornerback and then smoothly made the move over to become one of the league’s dominant safeties. It’s a position where the defensive back’s ball skills and keen instincts can still be used to great effect, but the emphasis on pure speed isn’t as high.

We can’t even have that discussion with Revis, though, because his salary for both 2016 and 2017 is in another stratosphere.

Here’s how his paycheck in 2016 compares to those of the other highest-paid cornerbacks. Note the cavernous gap between him and, well, everyone else:

Cornerback	Base salary
Darrelle Revis	$17 million
Trumaine Johnson	$13.9 million
Richard Sherman	$12.6 million
Stephon Gilmore	$11.1 million
Joe Haden	$10.1 million

That gives you an idea of the financial wall the Jets are up against.

The barrier lowers a bit in 2017 when Revis is due to be paid $13 million. But the breathing room there is only marginal, as he’s still scheduled to be the second-highest-paid cornerback behind only the Redskins’ Josh Norman.

Just for fun, let’s see what happens if we take Revis’ 2017 money haul and move it over to safety. Where would his value fall on the salary-cap-consuming scale then? Oh, yikes…

Safety	Base salary
Darrelle Revis	$13 million
Earl Thomas	$8.5 million
Jairus Byrd	$7.9 million
Reshad Jones	$7.1 million
Kam Chancellor	$6.8 million

With his play dive-bombing every week and his salary in the clouds, there’s only one way to justify keeping Revis on the Jets’ roster beyond 2016. He needs to take a pay cut.

Does anything in Revis’ payday-chasing history suggest he’d be open to a pay cut? Nope.

The logical conclusion for his second stint in green is clear then. The Jets will take whatever sputtering they can get from Revis over the remainder of 2016 as the veteran coasts on fumes. Then their losses need to be cut, and he should become someone else’s problem.

Releasing Revis will still sting the team’s pocket a bit, but the damage gets much easier to tolerate in 2017. That’s because only $6 million of his base salary is guaranteed. And more importantly, the Jets can save another $2 million by pushing him out to sea before the second day of the new league year when Revis is due to be paid a roster bonus.

The Jets need to rid themselves of a player who isn’t nearly what he was just a few years ago. And now he’s not remotely worth the salary-cap boulder attached to his ankle.

Signing Revis was an entertaining source of nostalgia at first. The Jets’ favorite cornerback came home to where he belonged, and everything was set to be right with the football universe again.

The problem with nostalgia is that while it invites warm thoughts, time and change have a way of sinking teeth in to make the present nothing like the past. We still crave the past, though, which is why your television is filled with numerous 1990s reboots.

But for the Jets and Revis, making the old new again was just a band-aid solution. It was a quick fix for temporary satisfaction.

Now memories of happy days are wearing off sooner than anticipated, and it’s best for all parties to move on.

Advanced statistics courtesy of Pro Football Focus. Contract information courtesy of Spotrac.