How Darrelle Revis became the NFL's savviest negotiator

[MVike28]

Brehs just read this.

What makes the Jets' Darrelle Revis the savviest negotiator in the NFL

im posting some excerpts its a long ass story

Darrelle IS BLACK EXCELLENCE personified

@NYC Rebel

THERE ARE CERTAIN athletes who exude celebrity; it trails them like a cloud of perfume, intoxicating everyone in their path. Darrelle Revis is not one of those athletes. As we walk through New York's SoHo neighborhood, passing an outdoor basketball court, none of the kids shooting hoops notices the All-Pro cornerback, who recently re-signed with the Jets. He's anonymous in gray sweats. (It should be noted that they're unusually soft and luxurious sweats, the kind of sweats that probably cost more than most people's dress pants.) Out of uniform, Revis, 30, looks surprisingly average, like a genial uncle who happens to work out a lot.

We duck into his favorite Japanese restaurant and sit in the front. A young couple walk by on the sidewalk and pause by the window. They lean in, and I brace for something -- a wave or a photograph -- but nothing happens. Turns out they were just looking for a menu.

Revis doesn't notice. He orders a bottle of sake, which he insists we split. "Do you like eel?" he asks. "Ugh." He pokes his finger in his mouth and pretends to gag, then grins, teeth gleaming behind his fuzzy beard. He was an hour late, and he has apologized several times for this. He can explain. He was shopping in midtown Manhattan, and he couldn't catch a cab. He stood on the street for maybe 20 minutes and found himself chatting with a stranger who was also trying to hail a ride. ("Nice dude!") Eventually, he gave up and tried to use Uber -- but his phone had died, so he walked around looking for an outlet and ended up going into an empty Indian restaurant. Once it started charging, he felt like he should thank the owners, so he decided to order an entree, and --

"I'm really sorry," he says.

Revis' gentleness can be jarring if you've heard the stories of his ferocity: how he punishes anyone who beats him to the ball, practicing with an intensity that's borderline inappropriate; how he once brawled with Jets teammate Patrick Turner because the receiver wasn't replicating then-Dolphins wideout Brandon Marshall's pass routes, jeopardizing his ability to prepare for a game. He's called his competitive fervor a sickness. But here, sitting across from me on a breezy weekday afternoon, he's so soft-spoken and serene, he's almost Zen-like- -- a monk in a warrior's body.

More impressive than Revis' $70 million deal? The $39 million guaranteed. Peter Hapak for ESPN The Magazine



Robert Mathis tweeted that he wanted to shake Revis' hand; longtime Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor wrote: "BRUH I NEED DAT REVIS DEAL."

"You have to admire what he's done," says Arizona's Larry Fitzgerald of Revis' contracts. "He's never flinched."

In the past eight years, Revis has negotiated five deals, held out of training camp twice, switched teams three times and won one Super Bowl ring. By 2017, he will have earned at least $134 million over the course of his career, cementing his legacy as one of the most successful -- and, some would argue, most cynical -- negotiators in NFL history. As he spears a piece of shrimp, I awkwardly broach the subject of his cutthroat reputation. "When you Google 'Darrelle Revis,' it says ... "

He pauses, sets down his chopsticks. "Greedy."

"Mercenary."

He rolls up one of his sleeves, laying his forearm across the table like he's waiting to have blood drawn. He jabs at his skin. "Should I get that tatted on me -- all of those names?"

When I look up, he bursts into laughter.



GO HEAD KING!

"I'm a walking billboard for fairness," Revis says about his legacy. Peter Hapak for ESPN The Magazine

 

[Rekkapryde]

Nothing but respect for Revis. Used Beli and Kraft just to get his ring and went back to the team he loves.

 

[MVike28]

THE AIRING OF financial grievances is an essential part of the NFL offseason, as predictable as OTAs and minicamp. But this year's gripefest felt different somehow -- broader, more philosophical. It started in May, when Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who earned just $1.9 million as a rookie last year, argued that, given the danger of their profession, players should make more money. A few days later, Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson took to Twitter to grumble about the lack of guaranteed income in football. (Two months later, he earned a favorable restructuring of his contract with the Vikings.) In July, Washington safety Duke Ihenacho marveled at the amount of cash handed out by the NBA, then asked why the NFL's minimum salary isn't $1 million. The average MLB player makes twice as much as his counterpart in the NFL ($4.2 million versus $2.1 million this year, according to Sporting Intelligence).

All were derided. "Grow up and do your job," someone told Peterson on Twitter. "How many folks in the real world would KILL for your life?"

As a rule, fans hate it when highly paid athletes complain about money. This is true of any sport, but especially of football, with its rigid salary cap. These days, we're no longer just Monday-morning quarterbacks -- we're also armchair general managers and part-time capologists, as conversant in subjects like dead money and franchise tags as we are in yards and catches. It's why we call for hometown discounts and loyalty in one breath, then urge teams to cut slumping veterans in the next. When a star player scores a new contract, we applaud -- but only after we've determined that the deal isn't a threat, the mislaid Jenga block that could send the tower crumbling.

There are structural reasons football players make less than other professional athletes. There are more of them, obviously. And they're more likely to get hurt. But Beckham et al. aren't wrong to complain. NFL contracts are stuffed with illusory figures, money that isn't real unless it's guaranteed. As a result, players live in a state of perpetual limbo; their lack of autonomy turns many of them into disposable objects, tools that can be thrown away once they're used and broken. Lose a step after a knee operation? Your team will cut you without thinking twice. Outperform your deal? Good luck getting a raise. Compared with the other leagues, the balance of power in football is tilted heavily toward teams, which is why players have begun to protest.

"Owners always take the emotion out of business," says Marshall, who was traded this offseason by the Bears to the Jets. "Players, that's where we lose. We approach it from an emotional standpoint, a personal standpoint." The strongest athletes in America are the weakest negotiators.

Darrelle Revis is the exception.

"SURF AND TURF."

A few seconds go by, and Revis, who is cradling his phone against his ear, sighs, then calmly repeats himself for the third time.

"I'll have the surf and turf."

He's so quiet, the woman taking his order can't hear him. I'm sitting a few feet away, and I can barely make out what he's saying. We're in the New Jersey apartment he's renting near the Jets' practice facility in Florham Park. The decor is standard-issue athlete bachelor pad: vast and empty, with modern furniture, a high-end entertainment system and a pyramid of unworn sneakers. Revis owns another house, a bigger place by the beach in Florida, but his lifestyle is modest for a multimillionaire. Until recently, he drove a gray Mini Cooper. Former Jets coach Rex Ryan used to make fun of it -- he told him to go buy a truck -- but Revis loved his little car. "I did a ton of research on it," he says. "It's great for parking."

He is impervious to ridicule. After he hangs up the phone and settles onto his sofa, he grabs a blanket -- it's red and black, the colors of his high school in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania -- and pulls it up to his chin so that only his face is visible. I ask him if he's cold, and he shakes his head, which peers over the blanket like a bearded periscope. "I like to snuggle."

He isn't trying to make me laugh; his tone is matter-of-fact. He likes to snuggle.

The island metaphor is a bit tired at this point, but it's also undeniably accurate, both in a football sense and a psychological one. Revis is truly a man unto himself, unfettered by the social anxieties that plague normals and celebrities alike. He dines at restaurants alone. He goes to movie theaters and museums by himself. He's single and finds dating frustrating, in part because he's wary of new people.

Revis recently flew to Toronto on a whim, gazed down at a Blue Jays game from the CN Tower and toured the aquarium next door. He didn't bring anyone on the trip. "I like my own company," he says, shrugging.

He's always been the quietest guy in a group. "Even on the field, when I've played against him, he doesn't talk -- not even a casual conversation!" says Fitzgerald, who's known Revis for years (both played for Pitt) and is one of the few NFL players Revis hangs out with during the offseason.

He's known for pulling off Irish goodbyes at parties -- leaving like a ghost, without saying a word. "I might be like, 'I'm going to the bathroom.' Then I'll get a text 15 minutes later: 'Did you leave?'" He giggles. "Yeah, I left."

There are many reasons Revis has successfully negotiated five contracts since entering the NFL -- reasons, in the words of former Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik, who traded for Revis in 2013, that "he's won every time." His agents, Jonathan Feinsod and Neil Schwartz, are shrewd, and his family is supportive. His talent is astonishing. By taking out the opponent's top receiver -- last season he was the NFL's second-least targeted cornerback, according to Pro Football Focus -- he tilts the field for the rest of the defense. Marshall says Revis plays his position like a pitcher; instead of allowing receivers to dictate plays, he takes control. "No matter what the situation is, he says, 'This is my technique,'" Marshall says.

Jets safety Rontez Miles recently told ESPN that Revis' knowledge of the game is unparalleled: "His presnap reads are amazing. He knows what he's about to get before the snap."

When it comes to negotiations, all of this matters a great deal. But as he talks about dining alone on a recent trip to Paris, a blanket draped over his body like a Snuggie, it occurs to me that his predisposition for solitude matters just as much. In an industry in which millions of people are invested in his success -- in which he's constantly being advised, praised and berated, often by total strangers -- Revis' tranquillity might be his greatest asset. He isn't just an island. He's a fortress.

Go back to 2007. The Jets traded two picks to move up in the draft and snagged Revis at No. 14, offering him his first multimillion-dollar payday. At the time, the 22-year-old had barely earned a cent, aside from a couple of summers spent working as a janitor at his high school. And yet, when the Jets insisted he sign a six-year deal, which would've slowed his timeline for free agency, he turned them down. Skipped most of training camp, even though he was competing for a starting job. Told them he would happily wait for next year's draft.

I ask him what he remembers from that summer -- if he was afraid of missing out on his first big check. He smirks. "No, I wasn't scared," he says. After skipping the beginning of camp, the rookie went to Feinsod's house in the Hamptons. "It was my first time," he says. "It was awesome." Three weeks later, he got the deal he wanted.



The next holdout was harder. When the Jets refused to pay him what he believed he was worth after the 2010 season -- the sticking point, he says, was the absence of guarantees -- he decided to use the only leverage he had, the only option any player has when management won't budge on a contract: He staged a one-man strike. Revis told the Jets he was skipping camp, then disappeared. He hung out with his kids, Deyani and Jayden, and flew to Florida, where he sat alone on the beach, watching the waves roll in. When his mother visited him, he bought an Afro wig as a jokey disguise. Told everyone to call him Rico.

Thirty-six days passed. Then, right before the season began, the team relented, throwing $32.5 million in guaranteed money at him -- including, crucially, a no-franchise clause. Feinsod says his client's patience was stunning. With Revis, there are no panicky 4 a.m. phone calls or meltdowns when he's called out by the media. "He's so unflappable," Feinsod says.



Still, it wasn't always easy to block out the world. HBO's Hard Knocks series was filming the Jets that summer, and Revis was in the news every day. He was rechristened Mevis, or Revi$, depending on which tabloid you picked up. His family received angry letters -- death threats, even. "The second time he held out, I was reading something that said, 'I hope he gets hit by a bus,'" his aunt Tamu says. She sighs. "Those are angry fans, and they don't understand the business aspect of football."

Revis told his relatives to pull the plug on sports television and stay off social media. He says he's always avoided the media as much as possible. "Once you write your story, I probably won't read it," he says with an apologetic shrug. "Somebody might show it to me. I might read a couple of sentences. Then, I'll just stop."

 

[jaguar paw]

Revis needs to lead that weak ass NFLPA Union.

 

[yseJ]

Revis is a diligent dude on and off the field

 

[Ain't That Something]

his aunt Tamu says. She sighs. "Those are angry fans, and they don't understand the business aspect of football."

."

I disagree with this statement. Fans understand the business aspect of the league, they just look at it from the owners point of view and say fukk the players.

 

[TheMadLionsFan]

Revis needs to lead that weak ass NFLPA Union.

A union is only as good as its membership. When the players grow a set of balls and start saving their money for lengthy lockouts they'll continue to get pimped

 

[TheMadLionsFan]

I disagree with this statement. Fans understand the business aspect of the league, they just look at it from the owners point of view and say fukk the players.

I disagree, most fans don't look at the business aspect but more so the team aspect. If a player holds out, he's selfish, greedy etc. The average fan is dense.

 

[Ain't That Something]

I disagree, most fans don't look at the business aspect but more so the team aspect. If a player holds out, he's selfish, greedy etc. The average fan is dense.

Breh theres a reason Madden allows you to act as an owner and build a franchise etc. nikkas know team cap situations and how it works, that is understanding the business aspect. The just don't give a damn about the players financial situation

 

[NYC Rebel]

Dude is about his business. Former players on NFL radio talk about him in reverence

 

[SchoolboyC]

Got nothing but love for Revis. Despite being a Jet he's always been one of my favorite players and loved that he helped bring my squad a ring.

Was disappointed he didn't come back but I understood 100%. It's a business, after all

 

[TheMadLionsFan]

Breh theres a reason Madden allows you to act as an owner and build a franchise etc. nikkas know team cap situations and how it works, that is understanding the business aspect. The just don't give a damn about the players financial situation

Did this guy really compare the intricacies of building a franchise on Madden to building a real NFL team. You actually feel that franchise mode "brainwashes" people into not caring? Thats some silly ass shyt.

 

[Ceazy]

Its crazy how much of a personal person he is people look at me crazy when I hit places by myself but I feel the same way he does. Stick to your guns people whether its job relationship or family. Big ups to revis for being a great athlete and businessman which is lacking from most players

 

[MVike28]

He walks alone

He marches to his own beat

He doesn't value "popularity"

He is resolute and a tough negotiator

He is a master of his craft

He's a smart money manager and financial planner

He's dignified and doesn't bojangle like that fukk nikka Warren Sapp

So many levels to his greatness

A great example

 

[HarlemUSA]

I wanted him to be a giant so bad in 2007. He missed training camp and still balled out.

He is my favorite defensive player. Thats my cornerback