I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Jets’ GM Mike Tannenbaum and owner Woody Johnson saw the news that Broncos’ linebacker Elvis Dumervil suffered a torn pectoral muscle yesterday.

The conversation probably went something like this:

“We’re f*&%ed with Darrelle Revis, Woody!”

“Now, now – maybe he didn’t hear about this, Mike.”

“It’s all over the f*#&ing news, Woody! Get your head out of your a$$!”

Dumervil led the league in sacks last year while emerging as the Broncos’ best pass-rusher. He also had just signed a lucrative six-year, $61.5 million contract just three weeks before suffering the injury. Now he’s likely to miss the entire season and Denver is up a creek without a paddle in terms of his contract. (Even if the injury keeps him out of football this year, the Broncos still have to pay him.)

One could only imagine that the injury reinforced to Revis the need for him to continue to holdout. He already has former Jet Leon Washington in his ear about what could happen if he plays on a one-year contract, and now Dumervil’s injury serves as yet another reminder to 1) get paid and then 2) play.

The Jets want Revis to either play on a restructured one-year deal or sign a long-term agreement that will pay him slightly less annually than the Raiders are paying Nnamdi Asomugha. But Revis wants neither – especially not the former. Had Dumervil not signed the six-year agreement before suffering the injury, there’s no way the Broncos would have paid him after he tore the muscle. He would have probably had to produce another double-digit sack season just to justify a long-term deal because all of the leverage he got from his performance last year would have flown out the window.

If the Jets were hoping that Revis would blink first, they may be waiting a long time in light of Dumervil’s injury. It might be time for Johnson and Tannenbaum to pay Revis what he wants and call it a day.

Rex Ryan is really hyping this Jets-Super Bowl talk this offseason.

From ESPN.com:

Asked Friday why he signed Adam Schefter’s training camp bus, “Soon to be champs,” the Jets coach said why not? That’s his belief and he doesn’t mind repeating himself.

“The first step is, if you don’t believe it yourself your team darn sure won’t,” Ryan said. “Again I’m not apologizing I just know what’s going to happen. My crystal ball I’m seeing a Super Bowl trophy in there. I could be wrong but that’s what I see.”

“That’s what I’m saying. That’s our mentality, that’s our goal and I’ve got confidence to put it up there. I believe we’ll do it so why wouldn’t we say it, why wouldn’t we go for it?”

I like Rex Ryan, although I can also see how he rubs some people the wrong way. He’s brash and confident and many people don’t like that, but one thing you have to give him credit for is that he doesn’t back down from saying what he believes.

That said, he better hope that his best defender gets into camp and that his second year quarterback progresses or else the Jets will be watching the Super Bowl at home again this year. That’s not meant to be a knock on them or Ryan, but the reality is that this team needs Darrelle Revis and won’t take the next step until Mark Sanchez can win a game or two on his own.

Remember, Ryan isn’t talking putting together a winning season or winning another playoff game or two. He’s talking about the Super Bowl and the Jets won’t get there without Revis and unless they can take the training wheels off Sanchez’s game.

Merry training camp season, everyone. It’s been a long offseason, but football is finally gearing up again and to celebrate I’m rolling out a new series on TSR entitled “2010 NFL Question Marks,” where I discuss one or two of the biggest concerns that teams have heading into the new season. Granted, some teams have more issues than others, but I’ll primarily be focusing on the biggest problem areas. Today I’ll be discussing everybody’s chic pick for 2010, the Jets.

Ah, the New York Jets – the media darlings of 2010.

How can you not like the Jets this year? The players have taken on the swagger and confidence of their head coach, their defense is among the top-3 in the league, they’ve upgraded their roster thanks to a couple of shrewd offseason moves (i.e. trading for Santonio Holmes and Antonio Cromartie), and they have a young running back (Shonn Greene) who might be knocking on the door of stardom this season.

But alas, there is one chink in the armor and he goes by the name of Mark Sanchez.

When you think about it, it’s rather amazing that a team coming off a 9-7 season that barely made the playoffs is garnering so much Super Bowl attention this offseason. Not to mention, they also have a quarterback who is a) coming off surgery and b) hasn’t proven that he can carry a team on his own yet.

Granted, it’s not fair to criticize Sanchez for not having a Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco-like rookie year. Most first-year quarterbacks struggle and seeing as how Sanchez was able to lead his team to the AFC Championship Game last year despite his rookie struggles speaks for his potential.

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If being the highest paid cornerback in the NFL is so important to Darrelle Revis, then maybe he should switch places with Nnamdi Asomugha. I’m sure Asomugha wouldn’t mind making a little less for the chance to play for a Super Bowl-caliber team.

In some respects, you can’t blame Revis for playing hardball with the Jets – a team that has always been regarded as a cheap organization. But considering they’re not being cheap when it comes to his new contract, what more does he want from them?

They offered him a contract that would have made him a Jet for life. But he rejected it. They also offered him a short-term, Band-aid fix and the opportunity to talk again at the end of the season about a long-term deal.

But he didn’t want that either.

Even though the Jets offered him a deal that would have made him the highest paid defender in team history, it’s still not enough for Revis, who has decided not to report to camp until he receives what he wants. And what he wants is not only a new deal, but to also be the highest paid cornerback in the league. That means that the Jets will have to come up with more than the $15.1 million a year that the Raiders are currently paying Asomugha.

Let’s rewind. The Jets are willing to make Revis a very, very rich man and set him up with a long-term deal, but because the contract won’t make him the highest paid in the league, he doesn’t want it.

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Michael Lombardi of the NFL Network reports that Jets’ cornerback Darrelle Revis will not follow through on his threat to hold out of training camp if he doesn’t receive a new contract.

Revis has plenty of incentive to report.

He has the option to void his current contract at the end of the 2010 season, but the Jets have the right to buy back the remaining two years at $20 million, fully guaranteed.

If Revis were to miss any mandatory time due to a holdout, however, he might lose the guranteed portion of the contract. He would then be under contract for two more years, at $5 million in 2011 and $15 million in 2012. That potential guarantee is something he would not want to risk.

The Jets are willing to give Revis the biggest contract ever for a defensive back (one that will approach $100 million), but reports continue to state that he wants more than the Raiders’ Nnamdi Asomugha (who received $28.5 million in guaranteed money over the first two years of the deal he signed in 2009).

As I wrote last month on this topic, I refuse to believe that Revis would turn down $100 million just because he wouldn’t make more than Asomugha annually. No athlete can be that greedy, can they? (Don’t answer that.)

The Jets are heading in the right direction under Rex Ryan. They don’t need a major case of the “me’s” right now as they try to make a run at the Super Bowl this season. Hopefully for their sake, Revis won’t hold out and eventually the two sides can come to an agreement on a deal so things don’t get ugly.