Revis Just the Latest Pawn in Patriots/Jets Game of Chess
Hey, hear the one about Darrelle Revis going back to the Jets?
We kid, of course. Unless you live under your desk, you must know by now that future Hall of Famer who came to define the term “one-year wonder’’ in his championship-winning season with the Patriots has chosen to re-sign with his first team, leaving the New England secondary looking depleted.
If you have even a cursory knowledge of the long, sometimes-bitter rivalry between the Pats and the Jets, you know that Revis is hardly the first partcipant to switch sides mid-stream. Plenty of players and coaches have bounced from one team to another over the past 18 years, when the so-called “border war’’ began with Bill Parcells’ move from Foxborough to Jersey.
Here are some of the most noteworthy.
Curtis Martin:
The Patriots’ third-round pick in the 1995 draft spent three years in New England before being swiped by the man who drafted him, Parcells. Martin, who rushed for 3,799 yards and 32 TDs in his three years with the Pats, played eight seasons with the Jets, leading the NFL in rushing in 2004 at age 31, en route to the Hall of Fame.
Bryan Cox:
Cox had already played seven years in the league with Miami and Chicago before joining Parcells, Bill Belichick and the Jets in 1998. He spent three years there before Belichick poached him to provide some veteran guidance for the Patriots young linebacking corps in 2001. It’s been written that a crushing hit laid onto Indianapolis receiver Jerome Pathon by Cox early on in that season sent the Pats on a course that ended in the first of their four Super Bowls under Belichick.
Ty Law:
Law was Revis before Revis, starring for the Patriots from 1995 through 2004. He won three rings, provided a highlight reel of indelible moments and was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame last summer. But don’t forget, after leaving somewhat contentiously following the ‘04 season, he wound up with the Jets. Parcells was long gone by then but there was no doubt it stung Pats fans to see one of the best players of their title run lead the league in interceptions in a Jets uniform.
Eric Mangini:
Reuters
The border war had slowed significantly by the end of the 2005 season but it flared up big time shortly after its conclusion when Mangini, the Pats’ defensive coordinator who had been a Belichick assistant and ally for years, left to take the Jets’ head coaching job. The Patriots locked Mangini out of his office at Gillette Stadium, keeping him from retrieving his personal belongings. Belichick wouldn’t say his name out loud in front of the media. And the postgame handshakes between the two of them made national news. The fact that Mangini was the catalyst for Spygate (which he claims to regret) probably didn’t help matters much.
Bill Belichick/Bill Parcells:
The crown jewels of the Pats/Jets rivalry, it all started with Parcells’ falling out with Patriots owner Robert Kraft during the 1996 season and his exodus to the Jets shortly after the Pats fell to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXI. Belichick was an assistant with the Patriots in 1996 and after agreeing to become Jets’ coach as a placeholder due to the terms of Parcells’ contract in New England, compensation was worked out to put Parcells in charge, making Belichick the Jets defensive coordinator.
The roles were reversed in 2000, when one day after he’d officially been named Parcells’ successor with the Jets – a position he’d been earmarked for – Belichick abruptly resigned as “HC of the “NYJ’’ and, after protracted negotiations that included a federal antitrust lawsuit filed by Belichick, Kraft and Parcells agreed on compensation and Belichick landed in Foxborough.
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