Play Like You Mean It: Passion, Laughs, and Leadership in the World's Most Beautiful Game (31 page)

I thought for a long time about all this, and in the end I felt the right thing to do was to call him and talk it out with him. I called and left a message on his machine inviting him to come out to New Jersey. He was the one who had brought it all into the media, so I knew that he had to call me back eventually. I had nothing to hide,
and I wanted him to know that. When someone wrongs you, the best solution is to open all your doors and invite them in, so I did just that. It was about a week before I got a call back from him. We talked man-to-man and basically just made it a point to make our positions clear to each other. He took me up on my offer and on Saturday, September 25, he came out to my office at the Jets’ facility.

Surprisingly, it was great. I think we both left with a very different understanding of each other. We sat down and talked, and he proceeded to tell me about some players he had coached who had also played for me. They told him that he didn’t know me and that he was dead wrong in his opinion of me. He went on to tell me that his whole issue with me on
Hard Knocks
was that he had a dear friend who wanted to watch the show with his son and had to turn it off because of my language. I understand that completely, and I made sure I told him that. On the other hand, it was important for me to let him know, too, that I am not a monster. I’m just a person who maybe doesn’t use appropriate language all the time, but I’m going to be who I am. I told our team to be true to themselves and I would do the same, cameras rolling or not. I wasn’t going to change anything about myself just because I was on
Hard Knocks
. I never felt it was my responsibility to clean up my language. It’s my responsibility to coach a football team and lead it any way that I choose to. Tony Dungy is not going to lead my team and he’s not going to lead me. Now, do I have things to work on? Absolutely. I have an enormous amount of respect for Tony Dungy. I’m just a different person than he is, a completely different person.

Aside from Tony, the rest of the feedback from
Hard Knocks
was humorous. Tom Brady spoke out and said he hated us as well as the show. Well, guess what? We hate the Patriots. What’s your point? It’s about competition. There is nothing better than to get the juices going. You want to hate an opponent. When you get fired up over one team, you go out there playing harder than you’ve ever played before because that hatred is inside you; it’s what’s driving you. I call your attention to our recent AFC Divisional Game against them … 
a real highlight win for us. Do I really hate Tom Brady? I really don’t know Tom Brady, but who wouldn’t hate him? Look at his life. Actually, look at his wife. Every man in America hates Tom Brady, and he should be proud of that.

As I said earlier, I didn’t know what was going to air on
Hard Knocks
until Wednesday night at 10
P.M
. I was just like any other fan. And while I think it did a great job of highlighting positive aspects of the franchise, there were a couple things that aired that really bothered me.

One philosophy we have is that we want it to be fun for the guys. We make no bones about saying that in the press. We want them to enjoy being here. We try to not take ourselves too seriously, but when it’s time to be professional we are going to play with everything we’ve got. We love to have fun and that’s our mentality, but I don’t necessarily think
Hard Knocks
showed enough of us working. This team works their asses off, but I felt like it didn’t portray them as these dedicated NFL players as much as it showed some of their other sides. There were situations when the show had the opportunity to go left and film them in one way, and it went right and made them look like this rowdy, undisciplined group of kids. That’s just not true, and that’s not the picture I wanted to paint to the public. For example, the episode with the whole cheeseburger incident was blown out of proportion. What really happened was that I moved the practice up 50 minutes early because we went to Long Island. There was a storm coming in, so I said let’s just move this thing up. The guys hadn’t had anything to eat on the bus trip and they saw a McDonald’s. It was literally their only option at the time. We were starting the practice off and they were bringing those orders in. It wasn’t like that happens all the time, but it just showed our guys in a bad light. Next thing I know, we are being referred to as the
“Animal House”
team and people are saying that I can’t control my team. What people forget, though, is that I chewed their asses for eating those cheeseburgers and
Hard Knocks
showed that, but people don’t remember the positives; they only remember the negatives. I know
that, and I know that’s what makes good TV. I just don’t like seeing something panned out on TV that isn’t completely true or that just doesn’t need to be mentioned.

Antonio Cromartie is a good example; that is another situation that really bothered me. See,
Hard Knocks
producers would choose a couple guys from each practice and mic them up so viewers could listen to them during drills and stuff. Once the practices were over, they would interview them. A lot of times they would ask them personal questions, but mostly it was just about the practice, how camp was going, and so on. Anyway, I think it was the first or second episode they had a microphone on Cro and, during the interview portion, they asked him what the names of his kids are. I guess you would have to see the episode to know what I’m talking about, but I was not happy with how they filmed it. I was unhappy they even asked him that question and brought his personal situation into the show. Cro is an awesome guy and an unbelievable athlete. Unfortunately, he has had some personal struggles, but who hasn’t? Watching the show later on TV, I wanted to shout, “Everyone knows the story. Why do you have to set him up like that?” It wasn’t necessary. It had nothing to do with what we were trying to accomplish from
Hard Knocks
, nor did it have anything to do with who we are as a team. It was stuff like that I didn’t like. I think it placed negative ideas in some people’s heads about who we were before we played the first regular-season game.

Despite that, when I look back on the
Hard Knocks
experience I can honestly say that I am really glad we did it. We went into it with one goal, which was to show people who the Jets are and what we are all about, in the truest form. For the most part, I think we accomplished that. I think the show did a great job of highlighting all that we have to offer and the extent we will go to for each and every one of our players, how we will get them anything they need—whether it’s a masseuse, a chiropractor, or a yoga instructor, we will find a way to get it for them. It was really important to Mr. Johnson, Mike Tannenbaum, and me that people see how we take care of our
players. We treat them like men, not children, and I personally make sure each of them is aware of how important their role is to making this team whole. We treat them right, and we take pride in that.

Aside from making sure the public saw the relationship between the franchise staff and the players, making sure they saw our facilities was just as important. We have the number-one facility in the league. Mr. Johnson is amazing at providing the absolute best for us in every situation.
Hard Knocks
did a great job of showing all of that. People were able to see where we held training camp; we were fortunate enough to spend two weeks at an unbelievable campus at SUNY Cortland in upstate New York. We had fields unlike any I have ever seen before, dorm rooms, meeting rooms, and a kick-ass cafeteria. As a player and as a coach, you literally could not ask for anything better. I mean, after seeing that on TV, who wouldn’t want to be a Jet? That’s exactly what we wanted to get out of
Hard Knocks
.

Not everyone was left with the same impression of us from
Hard Knocks
, but one thing’s for sure: We were entertaining as hell. Mr. Johnson says he knew people who would leave dinner parties early just to be home in time to watch it. I remember after watching the first episode that I thought it was great. I was entertained, and whether you know us or not, you can’t help but laugh. We have so many stories to tell, and
Hard Knocks
was kind of a five-hour preview into the environment that we play in. We hooked people just by being us; that’s the coolest thing in the world to me. I think everyone, whether they admit it or not, thought to themselves, “I bet it would be awesome to be a part of the Jets.”

We are building a reputation in the league that is making people want to play our way of football, and that feels so damn good. Thanks to
Hard Knocks
, people were able to see firsthand that “the same old Jets” are gone. It was a great experience and one that I am truly glad we were given the opportunity to do. Would I do it again? Well, I think it’s probably someone else’s turn.

T
his is the story of how I got my autographed Satchel Paige baseball for free, sort of. Trust me, I would have rather just bought one.

Let me set the scene: It’s 2
A.M
. on September 3, a Friday, and it’s time to get serious. I finally get home early in the morning after our last preseason game in Philadelphia, and I am hoping to get a couple of hours of sleep, but I can’t. The only thing on my mind is that we’re 10 days from opening the season and we’re pretty much screwed. Why? My best defensive player, cornerback Darrelle Revis, is still holding out.

The whole thing with Revis was driving me nuts. I couldn’t say much for most of training camp after we put the gag order on the whole thing, but this was getting ridiculous. Revis was probably on the back page of the New York tabloids more than any athlete in the city during training camp, and he wasn’t even doing anything. Distraction? What do you think?

By now, I’ve got the point he’s not showing up. I don’t think this is right. The kid had three years left on his contract. I know the negotiations hadn’t worked out, and I know he has hard feelings, but we’ve been talking about this deal all off-season. Literally, our first big meeting was way back in February at the scouting combine in Indianapolis. That went on forever. It was the first time I ever met Revis’s agents. They are these two guys from New York, Jonathan Feinsod and Neil Schwartz. Feinsod, it turns out, is a big Jets fan (not that it’s helping get the deal done), but he’s talking and talking about how much he loves the Jets. At one point, he says, “Rex, I’m really pulling for you, because Jets coaches just don’t last. I think Weeb Ewbank was the longest-tenured coach in Jets history.”

I know Weeb because of my dad, and of course this has me thinking, “How long was Weeb here?” I mean, how long do Jets coaches last, really? But the bottom line is that Weeb isn’t here—I am—and we have to work something out. The time for playing around is done. I’ve been pissed at Revis’s agents and I got upset with him, but that doesn’t mean anything anymore. The only thing that matters is that we’ve got to have Revis, because he’s special. He changes the game.

Trust me, I know. I was there in 2000 in Baltimore when we had a great defense and won the Super Bowl. Actually, it wasn’t just a great defense, it was a
historic
defense. You can put that group up against the 1985 Bears, the great defense my dad coordinated. There’s no question in my mind. I have total respect for the Bears, what those players did and what my dad did. The Bears changed the way people viewed defense with the 46. That changed everything. From Ray Lewis to Chris McAlister to Duane Starks to Peter Boulware to Rob Burnett to Mike McCrary, they were off the charts. The two guys who really set everything apart, though, were Sam Adams and Tony Siragusa, the two defensive tackles. Those were my guys. I was in charge of getting them to play hard, and that’s the hardest those sons of bitches ever played.

Those guys were rough and tough, not just on the field, but in everything they did. In the meeting room, at practice, during games,
you had to handle those guys a certain way if you wanted to get them going. When I got to Baltimore in 1999, Goose was already there. We brought in Sam in 2000. Trust me when I say that those guys made the whole thing go, because both of them played the best they’d ever played that year. We’re talking about one of the best bull rushers in the history of the game with Siragusa, and Sam could do anything he wanted whenever he felt like it.

This is where I’m coming from with Revis. He’s not a defensive tackle, so people don’t really understand the comparison, but what Revis does is change the X’s and O’s for the opposing teams. He can play any system. You want to play man-to-man, up-in-your-face defense? He can do it. You want to play zone? He can do it. You want to put him on the other team’s best guy all the time? He can do it. You want to put him on a receiving tight end, the kind of player who normally overpowers a cornerback? Revis can do it. We did that in the playoffs against San Diego sometimes.

What I know is that if we’re going to back up all our talk from this off-season, our defense has to be extraordinary. Like in 2000, our defense was phenomenal. Last year, my first year with the Jets, we led the league in defense, but we weren’t historic on defense. We will be if Revis comes back. There’s no question; I know we will be.

But I also know, at this very moment at 2
A.M
. on Friday, September 3, that Revis isn’t showing up. I’ve felt pretty strongly about this for a few weeks now, since shortly after we got to training camp. I guess the biggest thing I noticed was that he wasn’t talking. He wasn’t around anywhere; he was barely talking to his teammates. You know that serious silent treatment people give you when they are trying to show you they mean business? Anybody who has been married knows what I’m talking about. Heck, Revis’s agents weren’t even talking much. I just had that feeling he was resolved. As most people know, his uncle is Sean Gilbert, a former first-round pick who was a pretty good defensive tackle in his day. Gilbert was resolved enough to sit out a whole year one time when he was playing for Washington. And it paid off, because when the Redskins finally traded him to
Carolina, the Panthers paid him twice as much as Washington was offering him, so he actually made more money sitting out. That is the kind of resolve we’re up against, because Gilbert is the guy Revis talks to and trusts the most.