The Fifth Down: On Revis and Sweetness

Two media-related items to chew on this morning:

1) Darrelle Revis’s interview with Mike Francesa of WFAN was cut short by a Jets public-relations staffer Friday afternoon.

Francesa teased Revis about a penalty he felt should have been called on him in the Jets-Miami game Monday night. Before Revis’s 100-yard interception return for a touchdown, he and Dolphins receiver Brandon Marshall became entangled.  Francesa, who has had a contentious relationship with the Jets in recent years and who is no favorite of many Jets fans,  wanted Revis to admit that it was a penalty. Revis wanted no part of it. And the two became stuck on the subject.

Jared Winley, a Jets staffer, told Revis to hang up. Winley later apologized, saying in a statement: “In my judgment, given the tone of the interview, I should have asked Mike to move on to another topic, instead of instructing Darrelle to hang up the phone. That was an error on my part. I’ve called Mike’s producer and I apologized.”

You can listen to the full audio of the interview.

2) On the book front, Jeff Pearlman’s biography of Walter Payton has been praised for the depth of its reporting, and panned by many of Payton’s fans, particularly in Chicago,  who saw it as a hit job.

Michael Wilbon of ESPNChicago.com wrote last month:

The point isn’t to question Pearlman’s accuracy, but to question his purpose in writing the book. What’s the literary mission here? From what we’ve seen of the excerpts in Sports Illustrated, Payton’s big sins seem to be he allegedly took a lot of painkillers, and he cheated on his wife.

Pearlman took on his critics on his Web site recently, then explained why he has thin skin over the matter.

When you put X amount of work into a project, you breathe it, feel it, live it. It becomes your life. The thing consumes you. So for people to say, “Just a guy after the money” or “Lazy reporting” or … whatever. I just don’t know — on every occurrence — how to let that stuff go. Because, unless you’re made of iron, it stings. Hurts. Bruises.

Extra point Pearlman’s mission was to write the truth about Payton, wherever it led him. It’s hard to find fault with that. With Francesa vs. Revis, it’s hard to find a winner.

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