The first rule of Twitter is that you gotta be able to take what you dish out. The second is that, if you have a problem with Twitter, you take care of it on Twitter.
But maybe Darrelle Revis is not as attuned to social media as he thinks, as he violated both unspoken rules and took some complaints he had about New York Jets fans to the New York Post this week.
Revis, perhaps waiting until the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had logged their first win of the season to rub it in Jets fans’ faces, told the Post he was sick of getting unkind messages on Twitter.
“I get harassed every day on Twitter [by Jets fans], and I barely tweet,” he said. “And you just get tired of it. You’ve got to have a backbone, because you guys are saying, ‘[Expletive] you!’ and ‘I want to kill you!’ It’s crazy, but I’ve been getting death threats from them since my first holdout [in 2010]. It’s just bitter Jets fans.”
What Revis seemed most upset about in his comments to the Post was that fans were being critical of his money decisions, such as holding out to get a better contract from the Jets or preferring the one-year, $16 million deal he has with the Bucs to the $12 million he would have received for staying with the Jets. (He tweeted that the $16 million with no wins was better when asked by a fan.) While many athletes hold out for better contracts, Revis has been notorious in that regard, angling for a better deal with New York shortly after pushing the club to give him his first retooled contract. His most recent maneuvering is what led him to be dealt to Tampa Bay.
But Revis said fans should understand why that has to be for him.
“They’re still not over the fact that I’m not there no more, and they give me crap all the time on Twitter,” he said. “If they would understand the business of it and understand what happened, then maybe they would know and maybe they would quit trying to point the finger at me. There’s where it is.”
Revis said he isn’t “money hungry,” although he stands by the tweet that implied he preferred taking more money. He said he’s a “pro” and isn’t “concerned about” the criticism, saying he doesn’t “need to answer to really nobody else” besides himself. He said he left the Jets “with class” and that fans “got to move on.”
Revis may have a point in saying Jets fans hang on to their misfortune a bit too long, but it appears someone is stoking the fire of that misfortune. Just don’t read the tweets, man.
