Revis, who won Super Bowl XLIX with the Patriots, told the "I AM ATHLETE" podcast that the "tension" in the organization made it difficult to play there.
By Khari Thompson
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With Tom Brady out of town, Seth Wickersham’s new book hitting the shelves Tuesday, and the Patriots struggling through the start of the season like many other teams, the shots against the longtime dynasty keep coming.
The latest one comes courtesy of future Hall-of-Fame cornerback Darrelle Revis, who apparently does not send Bill Belichick Christmas cards despite winning a Super Bowl with New England in 2014.
Revis dished on the Patriots while joining the “I AM ATHLETE” podcast with former Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder. When asked by Crowder if he enjoyed his time in Foxborough, the shutdown corner had a pointed answer: “No, I did not.”
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“You know, I’m happy for the grind and the hustle of winning Super Bowl 49,” he added. “But you know waking up every day and walking into the facility and having to deal with the tension, you see why they’ve been to 10 Super Bowls. You see the hustle and the grind of it, but at the end of the day, there’s other philosophies to win and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Specifically, Revis made multiple references to a tense work environment around the Patriots organization, combined with a “no-nonsense” approach that has drawn praise from players like Deion Branch and Julian Edelman and scorn from Cassius Marsh.
“Nobody likes it in the locker room,” Revis said. “Just being honest, nobody likes it.”
By contrast, the four-time First-Team All-Pro spoke more favorably of his former coach Rex Ryan, with whom he spent four years while both were with the New York Jets, than Belichick.
“It’s just, it’s two different cultural philosophies,” the cornerback said. “You know, Rex is a little bit more loose. He likes dogs, he wants you to go out there and play hard, run into a wall, that’s fine. But there’s a lot of news going on right now with Bill, in terms of him and Mr. Kraft, and there’s a lot of stuff surfacing right now. At the end of the day, the way that he runs his ship is a little bit different. But I do give him credit for winning so many Super Bowls and having the longevity to do it.
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“When you play with the New England Patriots, there’s a lot of pressure every time you walk in the door because it’s a lot of tension, it’s a lot of noise going on in the background where, [with] how the team is [run], it’s unknown. You don’t know what Mr. Kraft is doing, you don’t know what Bill’s doing, you just don’t know.”
Interesting insight into the #Patriots organization from former star Darrelle Revis https://t.co/AhVHkB5N5X
— Drake Bentley (@DrakeBentleyMJS) October 11, 2021
Of course, no one should be expecting Revis will give back that Super Bowl ring he won with the Patriots — the only one of his career.
Also, it’s fair to note Belichick and Kraft don’t need to make players — even those of Revis’s caliber — privy to how they run their organization.
But the saga surrounding Brady’s exit from the team, as well as the struggles New England went through at the end of his tenure and during 2020, have invited more scrutiny about the team’s practices and whether or not “The Patriot Way” is really all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s hard to argue with the 17 division championships and six Super Bowls the team has won under Belichick’s watch. Winning covers up a lot of ills.
But they’re not winning now, which will give a few people a chance to say “I told you so.” Still, things could be a lot worse, all things considered.
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