Revis Trade Rumors: The Great Unknown

There is one aspect of the trade rumors between the Jets and Bucs that has been largely overlooked. It is the job status of Tampa Bay general manager Mark Dominik. Dominik is entering his fifth season as Bucs general manager. In the first four years, the team has gone 24-40. There have been zero trips to the Playoffs.

A fifth straight season of no Playoffs is the kind of thing that gets a general manager fired, especially a general manager on his second head coach and whose handpicked franchise quarterback, Josh Freeman, is not panning out. It seems reasonable to suspect Dominik needs a big year to keep his job.

This is the kind of thing that could work its way into Revis trade negotiations. The Bucs are coming off as a desperate team. We keep getting new reports about how they are willing to part with more and more to get Revis. Last week we heard they are willing to give up their first two 2014 picks for Revis. Today a Bucs beat writer tweeted that the team wants Revis bad.

General managers on the hot seat can do things to harm the future at the expense of a quick fix. Jets fans know that all too well. The team is experiencing pain this year because of Mike Tannenbaum's short-sighted moves to create cap space a year ago such as the Mark Sanchez extension.

This bears watching, especially when we hear about how many picks for 2014 and beyond the Jets are willing to give up for Revis. A part of Dominik might decide that sacrificing his team's future is worth saving his job. If it works out for the 2013 Bucs, it was worth saving his job. If it doesn't, the lack of future picks will be somebody else's problem.

The question is how much the Jets will be able to get from the Bucs or some other team for Revis. Over the past few weeks, there has been a stealth yet significant war for leverage playing out in the media. Both teams are dealing with obstacles that could cost leverage and impact Revis' price. For the Jets, they are Revis' injury, his contract demands, and the apparent lack of another suitor. For the Bucs, it is the necessity of a game changing player to fix a historically bad pass defense and the possibility of another team swooping in or the Jets coming to their senses and working to re-sign Revis.

So far, the Jets have been winning, which has been a strange thing to see given the way the team has handled things over the past year or so. We haven't heard much from the Jets, yet we keep hearing about how badly the Bucs want Revis and how they are willing to give up more and more to get him. How high will they go? It might depend on how much their general manager feels his job rides on landing Revis. Keep this in mind as these talks go forward.