Darrelle Revis: Is Rex Ryan Partly to Blame for His Holdout?

As a Packer fan, Rex Ryan’s comments following the selection of the 2009 NFL Defensive Player of the Year didn’t go unnoticed (can be seen here ). Ryan essentially considered the selection of Charles Woodson foolish, and suggested N.Y. Jets CB Darrelle Revis was the obvious choice.

Ryan made very strong comments about Revis being the best CB in the NFL, and also made light of the number of TD passes the Packer defense gave up during their 2009 Wildcard Playoff Game shootout against the Arizona Cardinals. Personally, if there was a “Coverage Cornerback of the Year Award”, it would be difficult to find a better candidate than Revis. But we can perhaps debate the merits of the two candidates a different day.

About six months after those comments were made, Revis is missing training camp practices as the Jets are dealing with a holdout situation. Many consider Revis the Jets’ best player who happens to have more than one year remaining on his rookie contract. One can’t help but wonder if Ryan’s comments are hurting the Jets at the negotiating table.

Everyone knows Revis to be one of the best corners in the NFL, but it's not terribly common for teams to renegotiate contracts with more than one year left. In order to make his case, I can certainly picture Revis’ agent suggesting, “Well your coach seems to think he is the best defender in the NFL, so he should be paid as such.”

I can understand coaches defending and/or supporting their players. However, I immediately thought Ryan’s comments lacked a certain amount of respect for what many NFL experts thought was a very deserving recipient in Charles Woodson of the Green Bay Packers. The always-quotable Ryan made no secret that he didn’t think Charles Woodson was worthy of the praise when compared to his player. As Revis’ contract situation became news in the offseason, I immediately thought back to Ryan’s comments regarding the Defensive Player of the Year selection.

The Jets are a strong playoff contender who happen to be on the Packers’ schedule in 2010. therefore, I can only hope that in some way Ryan's comments may translate into a few extra million going into Revis’ contract, or at least a fair amount of practice time missed.  I do realize it's probably a long shot that this will hurt the Jets at all this season and Revis' holdout surely may have been inevitable regardless of Ryan's comments. However, I also feel it's a fair turn of events for a coach who demonstrated zero respect for the outstanding season Charles Woodson put together in 2009, while suggesting Revis was the best CB in the NFL hands down. Meanwhile for 2010, Woodson is happily practicing in Green Bay while Revis isn't.   

Ryan quickly became a media darling during his first year as an NFL head coach, but perhaps in this case his colorful commentary is coming back to hurt his franchise’s negotiating power. Not to mention some modest bulletin board material for what appears to be a great matchup between the two teams in New York come Halloween.