1.06.2010

Revis a muzzle in human form

Jets at Bengals, Saturday 4:30, NBC

Note to wide receivers across the NFL: stop calling out Darrelle Revis. The Pro Bowl cornerback for the New York Jets has taken the best locker room quips, tweets, and everything in between from opposing receivers this season. All he’s done in response is shut the best players in the league down completely.

The latest loudmouth to call Revis out was Chad Ochocinco from Cincinnati.

“Darrelle Revis couldn’t cover me in a brown paper bag on a corner of a Manhattan street inside a phone booth,” Ochocinco said.

How many catches did he have Sunday night? Zilch. He played much of the game, too, but it didn’t matter. In the first half, the Jets dominated a unmotivated Bengals team, leading 27-0 at halftime.

Carson Palmer had one of the worst games of his career, completing just 1-of-11 passes before being pulled from the game early in the third quarter.

Yes, the Bengals’ playoff fate had already been decided by kickoff, they knew they’d be the #3 seed in the AFC, but you would think that Ochocinco would want to back up his weeklong taunting.

Here’s a list for you: Andre Johnson, Randy Moss, Robert Meachem, Marques Colston, Devery Henderson. The average receiving numbers per game for those five players was 4.8 catches for 68 yards. Against Revis, none of those players had more than 35 yards and no more than five catches in a game.

Ochocinco gets one more chance this week to break the trend of star receivers silenced by the third-year veteran from Pittsburgh. If he fails to do so, the Jets have the upper hand.

The pressure of this game for New York rests on the defense. With a rookie quarterback and an untested offense around him, the top-rated defense in the NFL will have to be true to form this weekend.

Carson Palmer’s playoff career isn’t much better than the Jets’ Sanchez’s. Palmer tore his ACL in the first quarter of the 2006 Wild Card Playoffs against the Steelers.

Nevertheless, Palmer is an established seven-year veteran and is more prepared for a game of this magnitude than Sanchez.

That being said, it’s hard to prepare for a Rex Ryan defense that only six days before made you look like a third-string Arena League gunslinger.

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