Darrelle Revis probably knows a little bit more about the New England Patriots after helping the team win the Super Bowl last season. The Pats, meanwhile, probably know a little bit more about him.
So, with Revis returning to Gillette Stadium on Sunday as a member of the New York Jets, which side stands to benefit more from the All-Pro cornerback’s one-year stop in New England?
Neither, in all likelihood.
“What we know, we know. What they know, they know,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday during a conference call. “It comes up every week, so there are always players on our team or other teams that have been with other organizations — we’ve played against them, or they’ve been with us, or whatever it is — so it’s really a weekly thing. And whatever we know about the player, we know about them. Whatever they know about us, they know about us.”
Belichick’s stance makes total sense. There’s so much turnover week to week, let alone year to year, that it’s unreasonable to put too much stock into one player facing his former team.
A player might provide his new teammates with some additional information, sure, but a team as meticulous as the Patriots undoubtedly takes that into consideration when preparing for any matchup. Plus, it’s a two-way street, as the former team also has extra intel on its former player.
“It honestly is basically every week (we play against former Patriots), so it’s not like we have a big conference or big meeting about: ‘This guy was here and now he’s there,’ ” Belichick said. “We could have that, we could go on and on about that on a weekly basis.”
Revis spent six seasons with the Jets before his one-year stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then his Super Bowl campaign with the Patriots, so there already was familiarity between him and New England. Last season simply added to each side’s baseline knowledge, with the benefits likely to offset.
In fact, any benefit for Revis or the Patriots come Sunday figures to be instinctual rather than rooted in preparation for a particular game.
“Yeah, I think both,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Tuesday on WEEI’s “Dennis, Callahan and Minihane” when asked if practicing against Revis last season will benefit either player. “He’s got, obviously, an intimate knowledge of how we do things and kind of the skill set of our players and our formations, and vice versa. I know how he likes to play things. His play style is very similar to what it’s always been.”
Revis, who signed a five-year, $70 million contract with the Jets over the offseason, is having another excellent season. Sunday’s showdown between the Patriots’ Brady-led offense and the Jets’ Revis-led defense likely will be about two players helping their respective teams with their tremendous all-around talent. Inside information probably won’t matter much.
“He’s a phenomenal player,” Brady said. “Some of those players you play against where you go, ‘God, how did they know it was going to be this route, or that?’
“Sometimes they just know by what they see, or their instincts, or feel, by the way the receiver walks to the line of scrimmage, the way the right tackle looks in his stance. I don’t know what he’s looking at, but he diagnoses plays and routes. He’s off to a great start this year.”
Extra information doesn’t hurt. Sometimes, it just doesn’t help much, either.
Thumbnail photo via Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports Images
