Jets greats Darrelle Revis and Joe Klecko are headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Darrelle Revis of the New York Jets reacts against the Green Bay Packers on October 31, 2010. Credit: Getty Images
Aaron Rodgers’ first game at MetLife Stadium, the building he now will call home with the Jets, was played on Oct. 31, 2010. He remembers it clearly.
It wasn’t due to any inkling at the time that he would be moving into that office space nearly a decade and a half hence. And it wasn’t because of anything exciting or thrilling that took place in a rather humdrum 9-0 win, thanks to three field goals by his Packers.
What stands out was who he was up against.
That was the day Rodgers and his team spent stranded on Revis Island.
“That was a rough day for the pass game,” he recalled at Jets training camp last week, reflecting on his 170 yards throwing against a defense led by Darrelle Revis. “He was definitely one of those guys that could lock down a side. So much of their scheme was: Darrelle is going to be here and he’s got his guy and they’ll figure out what they would do with the rest of the guys. That says a lot about him.”
On Saturday, Revis will officially join the ranks of the all-time greats in pro football when he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame. He and former Jets defensive lineman Joe Klecko will be inducted in a ceremony in Canton, Ohio, becoming the fifth and sixth members of the Hall who had their most successful seasons with the Jets. They’ll join Weeb Ewbank, Joe Namath, Don Maynard and Curtis Martin. Martin was the most recent Jet to enter the Hall in 2012.
New York Jets nose tackle Joe Klecko. Credit: AP/Al Messerschmidt Archive
Klecko had to wait 35 years after his retirement for this honor, having last played for the Jets in 1987. He is such a relic that his most productive season — he recorded 20.5 sacks in 1981 — goes largely unrecognized because it predates sacks becoming an official NFL stat the following year.
“Even though it has taken so long, it’s such a gratifying feeling,” Klecko said. “There’s no doubt.”
His teammate with the Jets, Marty Lyons, who will present Klecko for induction, was less magnanimous.
“The people in Canton finally woke up,” he said.
Revis, on the other hand, is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who retired in 2017, so he played recently enough to have at least some connection with the current Jets . . . and not just the 39-year-old quarterback who, by the way, is actually a year older than him.
Revis has become a mentor for second-year cornerback Sauce Gardner and is a cousin of safety Jordan Whitehead.
“When I was younger, I didn’t understand the league, but seeing him every week — hearing them say ‘Revis Island! Revis Island!’ — that’s all we knew,” Whitehead said. “We didn’t know what was going on, but we knew everybody wanted to be like him.”
The current Giants have a bit of a connection to Revis, too. Coach Brian Daboll was the quarterbacks coach for the Jets in 2007 when they drafted Revis out of Pittsburgh. They also were together in New England in 2014 and won a Super Bowl there. Jerome Henderson, now the Giants’ secondary coach, was an assistant defensive backs coach for the Jets in 2007 as well.
“One of the best,” Daboll said of Revis. “You didn’t want to challenge him too often. He was usually pretty tight on our receivers . . . You had to be careful throwing at him too much.”
“He’s just a super-talented one-on-one guy who seemed to play his best games against big-name receivers,” Rodgers said. “He didn’t have any weaknesses. It wasn’t like you could get him on top and back-shoulder him or have specific routes where he struggled a little bit more. He was excellent against everything. Fast enough to race you down up top, smart enough to be there for back-shoulder stuff, savvy enough to jump on routes when he had the instinct to do it.”
Revis’ best season — and arguably the best season ever by a cornerback — was in 2009. He was a big reason why some of the best receivers of all time, including Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Andre Johnson, Steve Smith, Terrell Owens, Reggie Wayne and Roddy White, were non-factors against the Jets that season.
“I shouldn’t have even suited up,” Wayne said after managing only a 1-yard catch in Indianapolis’ playoff loss to the Jets that season.
Revis had six interceptions and set an NFL record that still stands with 31 passes defensed that season. Green Bay cornerback Charles Woodson won the AP Defensive Player of the Year award that year, but Jets coach Rex Ryan insisted Revis should’ve been the choice after having “the best year a corner has ever had.”
Ryan also called Revis “a once-in-a-lifetime-type corner.”
On that, the Hall of Fame now agrees.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
