Darrelle Revis, the New York Jets’ wondrous and highly paid cornerback, skipped practice Wednesday with what the team said was a groin injury. As late as Friday, Revis was said to be questionable for a game against the winless and desperate Philadelphia Eagles, whose no-huddle offense is a perilous challenge even for healthy players.
Revis played anyway. Nelson Agholor, the rookie wide receiver from southern California who lined up against Revis for all but a handful of Revis’s 63 snaps, did not make a single catch. Philadelphia quarterback Sam Bradford threw two passes to Agholor while Revis was covering him. The first bounced in front of Agholor, a dud. The second sailed way over Agholor’s head.
The Jets lost, 24-17, after allowing the Eagles to build a 24-point lead late in the second quarter. After showering and dressing, Revis stood at his locker in the quiet Jets’ locker room at MetLife Stadium and mumbled, “It’s hard to come back from that. You’re down 24, it’s just hard. It is. No matter what your record is. No matter who you’re playing. It’s tough.”
That the Eagles were reluctant to even wade near the portion of the football field known as Revis Island, though, was just another sign of his staying power. Revis is 30, in his eighth NFL season and on his second tour with the Jets, with whom he signed a five-year, $70m contract in March after helping the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl.
Revis’s statistical line Sunday included all of one tackle, when he pushed a ball carrier out of bounds in the first quarter. He ended the game on the Jets’ sideline, because Jets coach Todd Bowles said Revis had tweaked a hamstring. Revis continued kicking his right leg up and down as if he were a Rockette, jogging up and down the sideline, anyway.
“I’ll be fine,” he said after the game. He said it two more times in a four-minute interview.
Revis was not really needed on Philadelphia’s last drive because the Jets were out of time outs and the Eagles were doing their best to run out the clock, which meant they would never dream of throwing the ball, let alone towards Revis. After a penalty on Jets linebacker Quinton Coples gave the Eagles a first down with 70 seconds to play, the outcome was sealed.
Revis disappeared into the pack of players from both teams shaking hands at midfield. He shared a handshake and a smile with Agholor. No one could hang this loss on Revis. Philadelphia had only 108 yards passing.
As if his reputation needed any more burnishing, Revis had intercepted a pass and recovered two fumbles in the Jets’ unexpected victory last Monday at Indianapolis. He was named as the American Football Conference’s Defensive Player of the Week.
“I think they’ve got some great players on the outside,” Bradford said, referring, no doubt, to Revis and the Jets’ other cornerback, Antonio Cromartie.
Revis lined up against Agholor on the far left side of the Jets’ defense on all but one of Philadelphia’s first 22 snaps of the game. The Eagles scored a grand total of three points. But the 21st play, even though a wide-open running back Ryan Mathews dropped a pass on a wheel route, gave the Eagles some incentive to try it again.
Philadelphia had to get rid of Revis first. He followed Agholor into the middle of the field on a second-down play that began at the Jets’ 23-yard line. Covered by the much slower linebacker Demario Davis, Mathews rolled into the right flat, to approximately the spot vacated by Revis at the snap, and hauled in a touchdown pass from Bradford.
“He knew it was coming, and he got beat,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said of Davis.
The touchdown pumped the Philadelphia lead to 17-0, and the Eagles added a touchdown less than three minutes later after Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall unwisely tried to extend a play by lateraling the ball to a teammate. It clattered off the helmet of an Eagles’ player before it was recovered by Philadelphia linebacker Jordan Hicks.
And that ended the scoring for the Eagles, with 32 long minutes left to play. Asked if he saw that as an accomplishment, Cromartie said, “No. We didn’t keep them out of the end zone.”
Revis said the Jets made adjustments at half-time, which explains why Philadelphia gained only 52 yards and failed to score in the second half. The Jets closed to 24-14, and Eagles coach Chip Kelly called for a third-down play in which Agholor tried to beat Revis deep. Bradford threw it too deep -- not that Agholor would have caught it, anyway. Revis was on him.
“We started playing like ourselves,” Revis said.
“I mean, you’re talking about Revis and Cromartie,” Kelly said. “And you go back and look at the film in terms of where we are, but I think they were pretty close in coverage all day long. That may be the best tandem we play this year.”
And there was yet another accolade for Revis. He’d had an effective day, despite the groin injury going into the game and the hamstring injury coming out of it.
“For me, personally, it’s about the win,” Revis said after the game.
“You saw it from the jump, from the first series, just coming out,” he said a moment later. “They were just a step faster.”
Revis Island moves to the other side of the pond next weekend. The Jets will play the Dolphins on Sunday at Wembley Stadium, and if Revis plays – and he will if he can – he will draw another tough assignment. He is due to make $17m this season, in part, because opponents don’t even want to test him. But that made no difference late Sunday.
“We tried to claw back as much as we could,” he said. “It wasn’t what we wanted. When adversity strikes, you have to respond.”
