By Andrea Hangst
What seems like an innocent comment about a player under contract to another team is, to the NFL, serious business. The New York Jets found that out on Tuesday, with the league fining the team $100,000 for owner Woody Johnson’s comments in December about then-New England Patriots cornerback Darrelle Revis, according to the New York Daily News‘ Manish Mehta. The Jets will not lose any draft picks as part of the punishment, reports Mehta.
Johnson said that he “would love to have Darrelle back” at a press conference to close out the Jets’ 2014 season. Ultimately, the Jets did bring Revis back, signing him to a five-year $70 million contract in March, once the league year had officially begun.
Revis has been at the center of another tampering charge, this one brought by the Jets on the Patriots for Patriots’ owner Bob Kraft’s comment that “the fan in me wishes he [Revis] was still with us,” in March. According to a source who spoke with Mehta, the Patriots will not be disciplined for Kraft’s remarks.
Revis, the Jets’ first-round pick in 2007, spent his first six years with the team before spending 2013 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and 2014 with the Patriots, eventually helping New England earn a Super Bowl victory. Given Revis’ status as the best—or at least, one of the best—cornerbacks in the NFL, it makes sense that first Johnson and then Kraft would desire to again have his services.
The problem, though, is making those desires public before the NFL legally allows it. The Jets aren’t the only team facing punishment for illegal tampering this offseason. Mehta’s source says that one other team will be handed discipline from the league. The source did not reveal the identity of that team or any further details, aside from the fact that the Jets will be the only team charged with tampering in regard to Revis.
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