The news of the week for the New York Jets was the arrival of cornerback Darrelle Revis, who ended his holdout and signed a new contract. The final episode of Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the New York Jets offered some insight into how that holdout ended.
It ended, as we already knew, when Jets coach Rex Ryan and owner Woody Johnson flew to Florida for a personal visit with Revis. But we didn’t know just how frustrated Ryan was as he began to prepare for what he seemed to think would be a regular-season opener without Revis on the roster.
“It’s a f--king joke,” Ryan said of Revis refusing to agree to the Jets’ terms. “Three years left on a f--king contract.”
Eventually Revis signed and Ryan was happy. But Hard Knocks is at its best when dealing not with stars like Revis, but with marginal players who are fighting for a roster spot. As always, the show featured plenty of brutally candid assessments of such players.
Rookie linebacker Cory Reamer, who was a starter on Alabama’s national championship team last season, was used as an example of the difference between college and pro football. In a meeting of the Jets’ coaches, it was pointed out that Reamer was a star on Saturday but can’t hack it on Sunday because “the men play on Sunday.”
And when Rex Ryan saw Brashton Satele make a mistake, he spat out, “Look at this f--king kid doesn’t even know where to line up.”
Those candid assessments lead to the most painful part of Hard Knocks: When players are told they’re being cut. For many of these young men, the NFL Films cameras are capturing their dreams being shattered.
“We can’t keep everybody,” Ryan said told the team. “That’s the nature of this business.”
What Hard Knocks does so extraordinarily well is give football fans an up close and personal view of the nature of the business.