On Monday, cornerback Darrelle Revis officially became a member of the Buccaneers. The man who pulled off the biggest acquisition of a veteran player since Peyton Manning was cut by the Colts and signed by the Broncos joined Pro Football Talk to discuss how the deal came to be.
Bucs G.M. Mark Dominik also spun things forward, addressing two key questions regarding the future of Revis in Tampa.
First, Dominik offered a bold prediction regarding the ability of Revis to suit up and play come Week One. “One hundred percent he’ll be out there,” Dominik said. “Everything’s on the right track in fact. I’m confident he will walk out the first day of training camp with pads on and go do work, so we’ll be smart with him. . . . Much like Adrian Clayborn had an ACL about the same week that Darrelle did, and we’re encouraged by where he’s at and expect him to be ready Week One as well.”
Second, Dominik was equally bold (in light of the player’s history) regarding the possibility that Revis will try to re-do his deal if he performs at a high level in 2013.
“That won’t happen,” Dominik said. “It won’t. Every year he’s going to walk out of his contract and say, ‘I’m the highest paid defensive back in the NFL, I’m one of the highest paid defensive players in the NFL,’ and there’s a lot of peace with Darelle right now, as there should be. But at the same point, he bet on himself and believes in himself and that’s why we were willing to extend up to that number of $16 million, but every year he walks into a new year with $16 million in front of him.
“This isn’t one of those more traditional contracts where . . . in year four or five he’s down to four or six million dollars in [base salary], he stays at 16 [million] consistently. So there’s no big signing bonus at the front where the player forgets about it in year four or five and says ‘I’m underpaid,’ this thing’s heavy all the way through and I think that’s going to stop him, in fact I’m confident that it’s going to stop him from his chances at ever holding out with Tampa Bay.”
Of course, this assumes that Revis won’t decide at some point that he’s worth more than $16 million per year, whether because of his performance or a change in the market or a potential increase in the salary cap when the new TV money hits the calculation. And it assume that Revis and his agents will decide to remove the holdout and the threat of a holdout from their effort to get more for a player who, if he’s healthy, will be giving plenty of value.