The Jets are putting a bunch of single-game tickets on sale Tuesday, but if they are really looking for a way to juice up their revenues they might think about doing an endorsement deal with a milk company.
Put Darrelle Revis's face on a million cartons of the stuff and tell fans that 75 cents out of every dollar will go toward a special fund used to bring the cornerback back to the team.
The only problem with that idea might be that it would violate the gag order put in place by the team and Revis when things got acrimonious early in August. It has turned out to be the most successful gag order in the history of gag orders. Outside of some misguided reports that Revis was about to sign a new deal last week, we haven't heard a whisper about where things stand between player and team or whether there's any chance that Revis is back in the lineup when the Ravens come to town in two weeks.
Heck, it's been so successful that not even Revis's grandmother will spill any beans about her grandson's whereabouts. Reporters from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gave Aileen Gilbert a call, but she wasn't giving up anything other than the fact that she'd spoken to the much-missed cornerback.
One imagines that the Jets are given a little bit more access than the rest of us, but imagining is all we can do right now. That goes for the question of how the Jets defense will do without Revis on the field. Things have looked good thus far in preseason, much better than the offense at any rate, but it remains almost impossible to conjure up an image of what the Jets defense will look like without Revis shutting down half the field.
Rex Ryan is telling us that it will still be a great defense, but that hardly jives with anything that he's said in the past nor does it fit with the defense we saw on the field last season. Even with Revis, the Jets had their issues stopping opposing passing games from time to time. Antonio Cromartie and Kyle Wilson are both upgrades from Lito Sheppard, but one has always been inconsistent and the other is a rookie. Maybe they can do it, but that's not the certainty you felt with Revis on the field.
And uncertainty is really what it comes down to at the end of the day. It would be easier to sit there and feel that the Jets weren't very good than it is to look at the team and know how much one missing player could wind up costing a team that's more loaded than any other one in the history of the franchise. Knowing anything, even that Revis will skip the entire season, would be better than this complete void of information.
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That's the way it is, though, and so we will wait and wait and wait for the moment that just won't come.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
