Love the Jets or hate them, they’re always good for a story.
Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis and New York City radio host Mike Francesa were in the middle of a heated argument on the air Friday afternoon when a Jets PR rep got on the line and told the Jets cornerback to hang up. The interview, which was on Francesa’s afternoon show on WFAN and simulcast on the YES Network, started off on a contentious note when Francesa accused Revis of committing pass interference on Revis’ 100-yard interception return for a touchdown on Monday night. It never got friendly as Francesa kept pushing the point and Revis kept telling him that there was no penalty on the play.
Revis was clearly getting agitated with Francesa and finally asked the host, “Do you know football or do you know interviewing?” Francesa said he knew both, Revis disagreed and told him “You’re good at interviewing, I’m good at football, let’s leave it at that.” At that point, a member of the Jets PR staff came on the line and told Revis to hang up which Revis did after saying “This is why no one wants to be interviewed by you.”
Jimmy Traina of SI.com has video of the whole exchange. Or, if you’d prefer, here’s a transcript via Brian Costello of the New York Post.
Francesa and the Jets have had a bad relationship for several years because the Jets are affliated with a rival sports radio station in New York. He clearly had no agenda beyond badgering Revis about the non-call, although it was immediately obvious that Revis wasn’t going to budge on the issue.
That said, the decision to pull Revis was the wrong one, even if Francesa had pushed the point well past anything but an obvious attempt to antagonize the player. Revis was giving as good as he got, making for a pretty compelling, if not particularly enlightening, exchange and no one would have noticed it if not for the PR guy’s choice to end the call. Now it will be another tabloid story in the neverending cycle of Jets tabloid stories in New York.
UPDATE 4:52 p.m. ET: The Jets later apologized for ending the interview.