Dyer: Rex Has It Right -- Bush Does Owe Revis An Apology
By Kristian Dyer
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Rex got it right.
On Wednesday, Jets head coach Rex Ryan had to address questions stemming from this time a month ago, when in the days leading up to the Week 3 game in Miami, he said that he was going to put "hot sauce" on Dolphins running back Reggie Bush.
After that game and again this week, Ryan was forced to play defense, and he reiterated repeatedly that his comments were not asking his team to target or injure, a claim that Bush continues to run with. On a South Florida radio show a couple of days after the game, Bush went so far as to claim that the season-ending injury to Darrelle Revis was the result of karma for Ryan's comments.
Bush made the same claims this week as well, which Ryan flat-out denied. But kudos to Ryan for saying the right things and even for apologizing if he was "taken out of context." But then he took it one step further and said that he hopes Bush will reach out to Revis and apologize for his comments that demeaned the injury.
Rex got it right.
There has never been any point during what is now his fourth year in New York that Ryan has ever said anything in any terms to indicate he wants his team to knock out or injure a player. He's been careful to a fault with his own team, including taking precautions with concussions and player's health, even if it meant going into games shorthanded or affecting practices.
He has said lots of dumb things in the past -- Ryan rarely seems to have a filter and even seems to embrace this side of himself -- but he's never hinted or indicated that he wants to injure a player, let alone Bush. But just as important as all of this, Bush does owe Revis an apology.
To say that it was karma that Revis suffered the non-contact ACL injury is just plain wrong, and perhaps it is too much to expect that someone who dated a Kardashian to fathom as much. The injury to Revis wasn't about what Ryan said and it wasn't anything other than a freak accident, and Bush certainly knows that.
Deep down, he also must know that the league suffers when losing an elite player like Revis for any stretch of games.
As an elite player himself, the entire NFL benefits when Bush is out on the field making plays and dumbfounding would-be tacklers. The kind of talent Bush has pales in comparison to Revis, one of the best defenders in the league -- if not the best. It was callous, rude and just flat-out insensitive for Bush to seemingly delight in the Revis injury as some sort of payback to the Jets.
Bush owes Revis an apology, and there should be no one out there rooting harder for his return.
When the Jets lost Revis, it was the league who lost a once-in-a-generation type of talent at cornerback for the rest of the season. No one should delight in that; no one should seem to feel vindicated by it. Bush instead should have been humbled to see how an injury like that could happen to anyone, at any time, even while doing something as simple as making a cut on the field.
It's nothing to laugh at or be snide or condescending toward. If he is any sort of man, Bush does owe Revis an apology for what was more than a slight, but really was trivializing and glorying in the injury of another human being.
Rex got it right. Bush got it wrong.
Kristian R. Dyer covers the Jets for Metro New York and can be followed for news, insight and snarky comments here.
If you were Reggie Bush, would you apologize to Revis? Let us know in the comments section below...
