Ryan And Idzik On Darrelle Revis

As the staff of the New York Jets prepares to evaluate college players at the NFL combine, Rex Ryan and John Idzik took some time to talk to the media about Darrelle Revis.  Revis has been in the news lately and here is what Ryan and Idzik had to say:

John Idzik

On whether he can clarify the team’s position on Darrelle Revis…
Darrelle Revis is obviously a great football player. He’s a great New York Jet. He’s a tremendous asset to our football team and our organization. With respect to clarity, I don’t know that anything has really changed because we’ve always wanted Darrelle to be a part of our team. That has never changed. I think there have been rumors or stories published and it’s really hard for me or anybody in our organization to speculate and answer to all rumors or stories that we hear. With respect to Darrelle, we’ve always wanted him to be a part of the New York Jets. Our focus with Darrelle right now is to aid him in any way we can with his rehab so he returns to the player we all know he is. As such, he will be a tremendous asset to us.

On if he will entertain trade offers for Revis …
Specifically (talking about) Darrelle, I don’t think it’s something that’s limited to one person. With me and my job and Rex (Ryan) and everybody involved, we will always field calls and always have internal discussions about how we can improve our team day-to-day, position-by-position. That’s an ongoing process. That’s not isolated to any one player or any one position. That’s just something that we do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, particularly at this time when you’re going into free agency and the draft. There are a lot of what-if’s if you will that we will be discussing internally.

On if Revis is comfortable with his current situation…
I think you’d have to ask Darrelle that. I can’t speak for Darrelle. I can say from our perspective that we’re very comfortable with Darrelle as a New York Jet. Our focus is going to be on getting him back. He has a pretty significant injury to rehabilitate. I think that’s our focus right now is to get him back to the level he was playing at before so he can help us.

On whether the team plans to speak with Revis’ agents about an extension…
I don’t want to get into speculation, but again I think you can understand it and respect it that we won’t ever get into contractual discussions publicly. We won’t get into speculations publicly but we will deal with the here and now. I think that’s the most truthful way. Otherwise, it can be very misleading and we don’t want to do that.

On if the team’s preference is for Revis to rehab in New Jersey…
Whatever is best for Darrelle and we’ll talk that through with him. Again, if he feels comfortable rehabbing where he is (that is fine). What we want is a good end result just like Darrelle does. What’s good for Darrelle is good for the New York Jets. Obviously, the more time we spend with Darrelle one-on-one is a good thing. I think as we get into the offseason program, it is all voluntary, but you would hope that most of your players want to be there and be in the building and get the juices flowing with our staff and everybody that we have. We have a fine medical staff. We have a great training staff. We have tremendous facilities so we feel that we have a lot to offer Darrelle and all of our players. We would hope that they would be there, but in the end of the day, it’s what’s best for Darrelle – how can we get him to clear medically and get back to the field to where he was before as quickly as possible.

Rex Ryan

On the Darrelle Revis trade rumors…
It’s funny. The thing pops up, and I think it’s interesting, as John talked about, the very first day he gets the job and this is what I was telling Darrelle. When I called Darrelle, (I said), ‘Darrelle, let’s face it, the man hasn’t been on the job for 24 hours and now you’re going to get traded?’ I thought that was kind of interesting and I said, ‘It’s not accurate. Plain and simple it’s not accurate.’ I told him that. If he was going to be involved in a trade, I think he and his agents would know about it, as would the general manager and myself, I would think. So there was no validity to that trade. I don’t know where things like that get drummed up from. Maybe somebody is a big fan of a certain team, and is playing fantasy football, and would like to have him on his team. I’m not sure.

On if he would be opposed to trading Revis…
I’m going to coach whoever is here, but John and everybody would be involved in that. Certainly, to sit down and say absolutely not, we’re not going to do it, I’m not going to say this player or that player, but if we got Jim Brown in that trade, we would probably look into it (joking).

On what he told Revis …
I provided him with the answer that I know to be true, which was that was not accurate.

On what he learned about Revis’ trade value by watching the defense play without him in 2012…
(It is) no shock to me. You guys see it every day. You guys know how good Darrelle Revis is. I think we all see it. I think the young corner from Seattle (Richard Sherman) sees it. He’s compared himself to the best. He even sees it. Everybody sees it. Clearly, he’s a tremendous player. You’d like to sit back, and right after an injury like that occurs, you want to cry and all of that stuff on the podium. And you’ll be like, ‘Oh hey, we’re going forward, it’s business as usual.’ It’s not business as usual. It’s hard to replace a guy like Darrelle Revis, and then Santonio Holmes on top of that. It’s funny because everybody wants to say you’re making excuses, never make excuses. Trust me, it was a big difference.