All through his tenure with the Jets, no matter how rancorous things might have been with the team, Darrelle Revis has always maintained that he wanted to be a Jet from his first cigarette to his last dying day.
Wait, it's not those Jets? He meant the football Jets? Are you sure?
Indeed he did, and Revis has maintained that position all the way through his post-draft holdout, his 2010 holdout, his threatened holdout last year and this year's trade rumors until Monday. That's when he reached his breaking point in an interview with Seahawks running back Michael Robinson for Robinson's YouTube channel when Robinson asked him about the possibility of playing for the 49ers.
"I would just be an addition to help them win that trophy," Revis said. "Would it be awesome? Yeah. My main goal as a player and I think of all of us as players in the NFL is to hold that Lombardi Trophy up in the air and to wear that ring."
Revis also said that it didn't really matter to him if he was with the Jets or not, which doesn't rate that high on the big list of heartwarming messages. The point, basically, was that Revis is prepared to move on from a team that many others would have abandoned ages ago.
Perhaps Revis decided it was time to take a different approach to discussions about his future after hearing word of the conference call for season ticket holders held by general manager John Idzik and coach Rex Ryan. There were plenty of questions about Revis, but the answers left much to be desired.
Idzik stuck to saying that the team's only focus was getting Revis back to full health, a bland and inoffensive retort that leaves out the fact that they may only want him healthy to guarantee a bigger return on a trade. Ryan, meanwhile, decided to deny that the Jets had engaged in any trade talks regarding Revis whatsoever.
U.S. & World
After four years, it isn't surprising to hear Ryan say something that rings as false as someone claiming that Earth is flat but it is a bit disappointing. The Jets almost certainly have discussed internally the prospect of trading Revis because they'd be insane not to consider it and it stands to reason that they have gotten at least one phone call from others inquiring about Revis, so why bother trying to sell people on the idea that all is rosy when the ship's taking on water?
You don't have to scream from the rooftops that you're willing to make a trade, but you also don't need to insult the intelligence of those who follow the team by saying that blue is actually red. False words and false hope helped get the Jets into this mess, so they have no place in the process of getting out of it.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
