Rex Ryan Yapping About Steve Johnson’s Success Against Revis

Cuts have been made, the roster is (almost) set, and Bills Jets week here. How do I know? The Jets are doing what they do best, which is running their mouths and trying to belittle the fact that Steve Johnson thinks Revis Island is a joke.

Specifically, New York Daily News reporter Manish Mehta went around asking everyone what they think of the concept that Steve Johnson “owns” Jets corner Darrelle Revis. The Jets were predictably coy in downplaying that idea. Revis essentially said “whatever, I’m not losing sleep over it.”

Rex Ryan, on the other hand, was more direct. In the article, Ryan is quoted as saying: “You’d almost sign up for that now. That’s their No. 1 receiver. If they’re going to spend a ton of their time throwing (at Johnson), we’d probably say, ‘If you’re going to catch 7 balls for 70 yards, go for it. That’s fine.’ That doesn’t usually beat you.”

Ryan is right that the Jets won both contests last year against the Bills, and Steve Johnson’s 11 catches for 159 yards and a touchdown in 2 games covered by Revis weren’t career days, and if the Bills were to get the same performance, they would clearly need contributions from other members of the offense.

On the other hand, how many games are you really going to win solely on the back of your top receiver? Unless you’re Detroit, the answer is probably none. Furthermore, Mehta’s description of the performance’s as “modest” is simply incorrect. Johnson’s performance extended across 16 games would put him at 88 catches for 1272 yards and 8 touchdowns, good for 6th, 8th, and 11th in the league last year, respectively. Put simply, that’s a solid performance, and Steve Johnson beat Revis. If Rex Ryan will take that, so will I.