Don't Budge, Woody!

Today ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor writes a piece urging Woody Johnson to just end the impasse with Darrelle Revis.

While that would be very nice and make every Jet fan sleep a lot easier at night, it is not the right move. In fact, it's a potentially disastrous one.

Here's O'Connor's full article with my retorts in bold:

Now the Jets have really made it in the Naked City. Now their owner can open his mouth in a faraway corner of New York, a country mile from Broadway, and say something more relevant than anything the Yankees and Red Sox would do over three and a half hours in the Bronx.

Sinatra was playing in Yankee Stadium after a four-game series ended in a split, ended with the Red Sox holding fast to the remains of their season, and Woody Johnson was swinging the heaviest lumber of the day in Cortland, N.Y., telling reporters and -- by extension -- Darrelle Revis that the cornerback can take his requested raise and stuff it.

Asked whether he was optimistic Revis would be signed before the start of the season, Johnson said, "The answer is no."

Johnson fired a warning shot over Revis' helmet, and he shouldn't have knocked himself out in the process. If he refuses to pay Revis, the owner will be doing something James Dolan dumb.

Comparing most owners to James Dolan is a vast hyperbole.

Don't do it, Woody. Don't follow Dolan and the Wilpons down a dark road to who knows where.

How can you compare Woody with an owner, Wilpon, in a sport where there is no salary cap? Completely different rules for play. There may not be a cap right now but there will be a lockout before the NFL remains an uncapped league.

Too many New York franchises are being hurt by too many unforced ownership errors, and this is Johnson's chance to pounce. His chance to take the marketplace by the throat by paying his best player and making the Jets strong enough to walk Rex Ryan's talk.

It's one thing to pay a player...and it's another when his demands are unreasonable.

Dolan made Isiah Thomas his most conspicuous free-agent grab. Fred Wilpon let another season die an unnecessary death by doing nothing before the trade deadline to resuscitate the Mets.

Johnson shouldn't make this some unholy trinity of metropolitan-area rich guys mismanaging their toys. Johnson needs to tell Mike Tannenbaum to offer whatever eight-figure salary will secure Revis' signature and then order the GM to fax in the papers faster than the cornerback can break on a pass in the flat.

This is an absolutely reckless attitude. Yes, Revis is an elite player but you cannot just fall to a player's whim. I'm getting tired of players thinking they can control owners and teams. They are the product but it does not mean they should dictate every aspect of negotiation. It was pitiful enough seeing NBA owners and GMs audition for LeBron, Wade and Bosh as if they were Simon, Randy and Paula.

And once Woody receives a contract awaiting his signature, he can summon the spirit of another Johnson, Keyshawn, and bark, "Just give me the damn ballpoint."

"Darrelle is the Jeter of the Jets," Tannenbaum has told one of Revis' agents, Neil Schwartz.

Is he really though? Do you really think Jeter would pull a stunt like this? As a consummate professional, I really doubt that Jeter would do anything to make himself a distraction to the team.

George Steinbrenner gave the Jeter of the Yankees $189 million way back when, and this winter Steinbrenner's children likely will offer their shortstop tens of millions in a brand-new deal, all of it fully guaranteed.

"The Jets still have not given us a proposal with one penny in it that's fully guaranteed," Schwartz said by phone. So the holdout rages on, and the agent confirmed Revis will miss the entire 2010 season if the Jets don't come to their senses, and fast.

"Darrelle will not play under the current contract," Schwartz said. "But he loves the Jets, loves his teammates, loves his head coach, loves New York City. He loves everything about being a Jet, but he's not happy with the contract."

Then....compromise? That's what people do when they are happy with their situation. You know, like the many people who do a job they love for less money because they love it. You can't have everything. Nick Mangold is an elite center. He would like a new contract too. But he's out on the practice field, mentoring Matt Slauson and Vlad Ducasse. Being unselfish, a characteristic we had thought of Revis. Mangold and even David Harris are just as deserving of pay raises as Revis.

Woody Johnson needs to make him happy.

Is Woody the rich dad and Darrelle the spoiled kid? 

His GM met with Revis' agents, Schwartz and Jon Feinsod, on Friday at a Roscoe, N.Y., diner, where they haggled a lot more over the contract than they did over the bill. The agents gave Tannenbaum a revised proposal they wanted Johnson to see for himself.

"We didn't want Mike to interpret it for Mr. Johnson," Schwartz said. "If Mr. Johnson didn't like the proposal, that's fine, but what didn't you like about it? Was it all garbage? ... We gave the Jets a very fair proposal, and we hope Mr. Johnson sat and read it and understood that we addressed a lot of his previous concerns in that proposal."

Revis is scheduled to earn $1 million this season, a complete joke of a wage in a sport that kills off its wounded with alarming ease. Nonguaranteed contracts are discarded as easily as a crushed Gatorade cup, and buyout packages often are smaller than a referee's whistle.

This is a contract he already held out for before his rookie season. He deserves more. But there is a middle ground between $1 million and $16 million a season.

Yes, Revis signed that contract, one the Jets acknowledge he's outplayed. But Thomas Jones and Alan Faneca and Pete Kendall signed their contracts, too, until the Jets decided they didn't like the way their numbers added up.

Never mind Leon Washington and the deal he was ready to get until he went and ruined his leg.

"Look at the Leon situation," Revis told ESPNNewYork.com in June. "They were working on his contract, and he broke his leg and missed the season, and now he has no stability, no comfort zone, no anything."

Revis also had heard the Derek Jeter line from Jets management, heard how much the organization appreciated his dignity and class.

"And the thing I'm so frustrated by," he said then, "is they sit here and tell me this to my face. But then they don't want to value me or honor me for that."

But if he really exemplified dignity and class, wouldn't he be in Cortland right now like Mangold? It's one thing to be told it and believe it. It's another to actually exhibit it. Revis is doing the former, not the latter.

Ryan already is on record predicting that Revis will be a Jet for life, that the cornerback could blow past Joe Willie Namath as the greatest Jet of them all. The coach has set the market with his mouth, and Revis has set the market with his feet and hands.

But the Jets simply don't want to pay what the market will bear. "My impression is no progress," Johnson said. "That's the way Mike characterized it to me was no movement whatsoever."

It's time for some movement, and for Johnson to assume the role of Mariano Rivera if Tannenbaum can't close the deal.

The Jets must confront the cold, hard truth: If Oakland's Nnamdi Asomugha has a deal averaging $15.1 million a pop, a superior player such as Revis has every right to ask for a superior wage.

NO, NO, NO. This is the statement I could not disagree with more in this article. Just because one crazy owner (the craziest of them all), Al Davis, sets a ridiculous plateau for top corners, it does not mean the rest of the market needs to follow. Asomugha is an elite corner but that is a LOT of money. It is the type of contract that can completely destroy a team's ability to sign other key players under a cap. You cannot let one owner's lunacy dictate your own franchise's sanity. Woody Johnson has to know that.

There's likely a compromise to be reached slightly south of that figure, something like the midpoint between the Jets' Cortland camp and the diner in Roscoe. Woody Johnson needs to find it. And he needs to run a 4.3 40 on the way there.

Now, O'Connor advocates a middle ground, after writing a whole article saying how Woody needs to pay him whatever he wants. A one sentence backtrack. As much as I love Darrelle Revis and know what a game changer he is, signing him to a bloated contract is not worth the repercussions. If you're gonna give in to Revis and pay him whatever he wants, what kind of message does that send to Mangold or Harris when it's time to negotiate with them?

Revis is acting like the spoiled kid, "taking a stand" by sitting in his room while everyone else plays outside because he didn't get what he wants. But what he needs to realize is that life goes on without you. While you sit in your room, thinking you're "showing them," they're really just learning to live without you. 

Right now the Jets still have the power. Revis is under a three-year contract. He would be very dumb to waste away his prime waiting for more money. Woody has the leverage. The Jets can go on without Revis. Antonio Cromarite is a former Pro Bowler and Kyle Wilson a first round pick. But right now, Revis needs the Jets. For both parties' sake, you hope he will realize that. If not, he will be doing a disservice to both.