Darrelle Revis dismisses dust-up with Brandon Marshall as 'good' for Jets
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – There was no repeat of the battle between New York Jets receiver Brandon Marshall and cornerback Darrelle Revis, but on Saturday, Revis explained his version of the incident.
“It’s football, to me. It’s football,” Revis said in a press conference at the team’s facility after practice. “That’s how I look at it. We’re not going to go back and forth over who does what. Everybody does what they need to do out there, playing on the field. We’re trying to get better as a team. We’re two very competitive guys.
“This hasn’t been the first time of us getting into it. We’re both physical players and we like to compete. I think this is good. This is good for us to compete the way we did. Brandon’s not going to stop competing the way he did and I’m not going to stop.”
After an intense series of one-on-one matchups in practice Friday, Marshall took an open-handed swipe that connected with Revis’ shoulder pad – something Marshall said Revis “baited” him into doing.
The matchup intensified after both players trash talked throughout the session. On Friday, Marshall said he brought up one of Revis’ worst performances of last season, when Houston Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins caught five passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, with most of the production coming against the Jets corner.
“You’ve got to do more to get under my skin than that,” Revis said, before adding that that “everything is fine” between both players.
Revis also denied that directed personal comments at Marshall before the matchup became physical.
“It was a good, high-energy, competitive practice,” Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said Saturday of the Revis-Marshall matchup the day before. “I think sometimes things can be overblown a little bit, but that’s all we took it as players.”
Jets coach Todd Bowles said he addressed the incident with the entire team.
“We see it as good competition,” defensive end Leonard Williams said. “It’s football. We’ve been seeing since we were playing at eight years old. When two good players go against each other, there’s going to be a little bit of tension. All they’re doing is pushing each other and they know it. It sparked that fire for the rest of practice. Everybody started going faster, started playing more physical.”
Fans who were looking for a rematch at Saturday night’s scrimmage didn’t get the chance to see it happen. Marshall and Revis were lined up across from each other for only one play – the first pass of the nearly hour-long 11-on-11 session in full pads.
Marshall caught the short pass on a comeback route, but Revis was in zone coverage.
For the majority of the other plays, Marshall lined up across cornerback Marcus Williams, something Bowles said was not intentional.
Marshall also missed several plays with what appeared to be heat exhaustion.
“It’s still the early stages of camp,” Revis said. “We’ll get after it again.”
Follow Lorenzo Reyes on Twitter @LorenzoReyes.
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