The Jets celebrated Darrelle Revis’ retirement with a real-life Revis Island

In the late 00s and early 10s, “Revis Island” was the vacation destination no NFL wide receiver wanted to see on his itinerary. That was the sanctuary where the league’s most fearsome cornerback, Darrelle Revis, separated Pro Bowlers from their own offenses and told them to take Sunday off.

On Tuesday, in honor of the four-time All-Pro’s official retirement, the New York Jets sent their former standout off into the sunset with a real-life version of his figurative island. Well, sorta:

Revis’s retirement ceremony chugged past his namesake island outside the team’s training facility, which was really just a few office palm trees and a couple hundred pounds of sand. New York missed a massive opportunity to drop in the graves of Kurt Warner, Steve Smith, Roddy White, or Chad Ochocinco all of whom he absolutely murdered at some point during his tenure with the team.

Revis entered the NFL in 2007 as the Jets’ first-round draft pick and made an immediate impact as a full-time starter his rookie season. By 2008 he was a Pro Bowler, and by 2009 Revis Island was in full effect. He was the heart of a defense that helped lift a team quarterbacked by Mark Sanchez to back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances before pricing himself out of New York in 2013. That necessitated a trade to Tampa Bay — and a record-setting six-year, $96-million contract.

Stops with the Buccaneers and Patriots led him back to the Jets for one last two-year stint, where he earned a Pro Bowl nod in 2015 before his play declined steeply in 2016 and made him merely average. He’d return to the league for a five-game stint with the Chiefs in 2017, but a lack of interest in this year’s free agent marketplace led Revis to announce his intention to retire this July.

New York, the franchise with which he’d spent eight of his 11 NFL seasons, was a natural place to officially end his career. In true Jets fashion, their follow-up tweet featured Revis completely ignoring his island on his walk into the facility.

At the ceremony, Jets owner Christopher Johnson called him “not just one of the best players in the history of the franchise, but one of the best players in the history of the game, period” before giving way to Revis. The seven-time Pro Bowler was deferential after signing a one-day contract to officially retire as a member of the team.

“I gotta thank a ton of people. I gotta thank this organization, the coaching staff, my teammates. Though I am officially retiring today, they played a big role in all of this,” Revis told the crowd. He’d later field questions from reporters, citing Randy Moss as his toughest assignment on the turf and his two AFC title game defeats in New York as his biggest regrets from the game.

“This journey was great. I enjoyed every bit of it. I put my heart and soul into wearing the green and white.”