Of course, the success of the Jets’ defense became
synonymous with one man’s name over the course
of the season. Well, actually, one man’s property. Re-
ceivers went to “Revis Island” and came back posting
scathing reviews on Twitter, as Darrelle Revis emerged
as the league’s best defensive player in his third season.
The Associated Press voters gave that title to Charles
Woodson; they were wrong. No one had more of an
impact on his defense than Revis, and the Jets’ defense
was better than the Packers’ defense was.
Revis had a very rare mix of both quality and quan-
tity. He led the league in Adjusted Yards per Pass and
Success Rate, which is impressive enough by itself,
but what was more impressive is that he still drew the
sixth-highest target rate of any defensive back in the
league. He was consistently able to convince quar-
terbacks to throw in his direction, and yet, effective
enough to prevent those passes from being completed.
That raises his value compared to a player like Nnam-
di Asomugha, whose greatness simply funnels targets
over to the other, weaker players on the roster.
Placing Revis’ performance in context is difficult.
Charting numbers are far from perfect measures of
performance. More importantly, with only five years
of charting data, there are no obvious reference
points for a historically-great performance, such as
throwing for 50 touchdowns or running for 2,000
yards. What we can do is incorporate a statistical
methodology known as Z-scores — which isolates
the difference between an outlying statistic and an
average — and then translate that into the format of
more traditional statistics.
Revis allowed an adjusted average of 3.5 yards per
pass. The average for qualifying corners was 7.5, while
the standard deviation was 1.37. The Z-Score repre-
sents how many standard deviations above or below
the mean the statistic in question was; in this case, Re-
vis was 2.9 standard deviations below the mean. If we
apply the same analysis to his Success Rate, we find
that he was 3.0 standard deviations above the mean
(above, in this case, because a high Success Rate is
good, while a high Average Yards per Pass is bad).
Splitting the difference between the two suggests that
Revis was playing at a level 2.95 standard deviations
better than the average cornerback.
Now, keep in mind that Revis was also targeted on
96 passes, the fifth-most of any corner in the league.
If we look at the fifth-most frequently used players at
quarterback, running back and wide receiver, and ad-
just their statistical lines on a per-play basis to be 2.95
standard deviations above the average performance
by a qualifying player at their position, the results are
staggering *** See Below. A player playing at Revis’ level
while getting a comparable usage rate at a different
position in 2009 would have set the NFL passing re-
cord by nearly 500 yards, beat out Jerry Rice for the
single-season receiving record, or run for 2,000 yards
while averaging a record-tying 6.4 yards per carry.
TO 3-17Ocho 4-41Guess Revis Island covered the WHOLE field last night 
TO 3-17Ocho 4-41Guess Revis Island covered the WHOLE field last night 
Yea I realize that he was an up and coming corner that's why I said he was pretty good before, but I think if Rex wasn't there he wouldn't be as good as he is now.
layer | Actual Line | Revis-ized Line
