Rex Ryan and Darrelle Revis are Dunking on the Patriots and it is Sweet Music to These Ears
If there's a core philosophy that sums up my worldview better than any other - which is to say one that doesn't come from Mass on Sundays, which I'm supposed to be living my life by - it's the old expression, "It's not enough that I succeed. Others must also fail." So for example, I'm fiercely proud to have been with Barstool since the very beginning and of my part in helping it become what it is. But to be truly happy about it, I remind myself of what happened to Deadspin. Really appreciating how good you have it is all a matter of perspective.
Which is why I will always be grateful there's a New York Jets. And a man like Rex Ryan, who personifies what they've been all about for the better part of the last half a century. Without them as a measuring stick, we might not fully be able to judge what we have been witness to all these years.
I mean, if Sexy Rexy doesn't think the Patriots are a playoff material, more power to him. Teams that start 2-3 have a steep grade to climb. So it's a perfectly legitimate take. But a "peashooter at quarterback"? Granted, Ryan has a lot of experience coaching highly drafted QBs who couldn't throw. Mark Sanchez. Geno Smith. EJ Manuel. So he should know when a rookie isn't being coached up right better than anyone. He's witnessed it first hand.
But this is the rookie he's taking an extra large dump on:
So you can see how he'd resent Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels for producing yet another promising quarterback (Belichick obviously gets credit for Tom Brady, while McDaniels was here for Matt Cassel, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jacoby Brissett and now Mac Jones), while Shrex was 0-for-career. And once again, he gives my the chance to make a top shelf Margarita out of his salty tears. Which I appreciate, since it's now been five full years since he suffered his last indignity at the Patriots hands, but is still able to produce this level of animosity. It's brilliant.
And because he's also part of this discussion, I'll include the best player Ryan ever coached.
Source - Winning cures all, right? Not necessarily for Darrelle Revis.
The former Pro Bowl cornerback spent one season with the New England Patriots in 2014 and emerged with a Super Bowl ring [but] Revis apparently didn't have many fond memories from that season.
"Nobody likes it in the locker room. Just being honest, nobody likes it," Revis said on a new episode of the "I Am Athlete" podcast. …
"You know, I'm happy for the grind and the hustle of winning Super Bowl 49, but you know waking up every day and walking into the facility and having to deal with the tension, you see why they've been to ten Super Bowls. You see the hustle and the grind of it, but at the end of the day, there's other philosophies to win and it doesn't have to be that way. …
"Rex is a little bit more loose," Revis said. "He likes dogs, he wants you to go out there and play hard, run into a wall, that's fine. … When you play with the New England Patriots, there’s a lot of pressure every time you walk in the door because it's a lot of tension, it's a lot of noise going on in the background where, [with] how the team is [run], it's unknown. You don't know what Mr. Kraft is doing; you don't know what Bill's doing."
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And that sums it up. A few NFL players and a couple of former Patriots have complained about how they didn't have fun doing all that winning in New England. But never before has the contrast between the Pats and Jets been outlined in such stark terms. Revis was in Foxboro for one season. He got his one and only ring of his 11-year career. He got it by helping to win the most dramatic Super Bowl of all time. Against a team that was on the verge of becoming a dynasty in their own right. But Revis' team killed that empire in the nest in historic fashion. But when it was all said and done, what was more important to him was for it to be "loose." To play for someone who likes dogs. Who I guess lets you in on how the team is run. And for whom you can do 8-8, but enjoy yourself while sitting in a nice, tension free locker room.
And that's great. More power to Revis. Some people thrive in tension, others prefer the peace and quiet that come from low expectations. That's why some people work on the stock market floor and others become librarians. Different strokes, and all that. Though if I'm a Jets fan (and by the grace of God I am not), I don't know how I feel about the best player my team has had since Curtis Martin basically admitting he preferred losing under Ryan to winning a championship. Since the latter is what my goal is. And if I was in the Jets front office who was found guilty of tampering with Revis to bring him back to New York in 2015, I'd feel like we wasted a lot of money on a guy who just confessed to not caring about winning. And proved it once he came back:
So thanks to both Ryan and to Revis. Once again I find myself saying that if this team didn't exist, I'd have to invent them. Enjoy watching this peashooter show you what having fun is all about for the next 20 years.