Brandon Austin picked Champ Bailey over Darrelle Revis, and he spent the first 10 seconds arguing for Revis.
“The margin is super thin, but give me Champ Bailey,” he said, before immediately conceding the obvious on Football Debate Club. “Revis Island was real. He could erase the other team’s number one receiver better than just about anyone we’ve ever seen. There’s a reason he’s a Hall of Famer and the only corner to ever earn a 100 [PFSN] cornerback impact score.”
Why Brandon Austin Picks Champ Bailey Over Darrelle Revis
That perfect score is PFSN’s own metric, and it’s the strongest case anyone can make for Revis. It’s also, in Austin’s framing, the entire case.
“If I’m building my secondary, get me Bailey,” he said. “Not only was he an elite cover corner, he was a true game changer. Bailey finished with 52 career interceptions and returned four of them for touchdowns. He didn’t just lock down receivers, he got the ball back for his offense.”
Both numbers check out. Bailey’s 52 interceptions came back for 464 yards and four scores, and they were the most by any cornerback during his career. Revis, for all his dominance, finished with 29 picks and three touchdowns in 11 seasons. Quarterbacks stopped throwing at Revis, which is the highest compliment a corner can receive and also the reason his counting stats stayed modest.
Austin’s other pillar is the record book. “He also owns the most pass breakups in NFL history,” he said, “was a willing tackler, can line up all over the field, and wasn’t afraid to travel with elite receivers.” Bailey retired with 203 passes defensed, still the NFL mark. Revis had 139.
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Then the argument gets to what it was always about.
“And maybe the biggest difference, longevity,” Austin said. “Champ played at an elite level for well over a decade, stacking 12 Pro Bowls while matching up against the likes of Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt and Larry Fitzgerald.”
Twelve Pro Bowls is the most ever by a defensive back. Bailey played 215 games and started all but three of them across 15 seasons. Revis played 145 games in 11.
The Peak Argument Cuts Both Ways
Here’s where Austin’s case is stronger than he made it. He conceded Revis’ peak and moved on. He didn’t have to.
“Revis may have had the slightly higher peak as a pure shutdown corner, but that’s one season,” Austin said. “Bailey’s prime lasted longer and he was the complete package.”
Revis’ 2009 is the season in question, six interceptions and a league-leading 31 passes defensed while erasing Moss, Owens, Andre Johnson and Chad Johnson in succession. It belongs in any conversation about the best year a corner has ever had.
But Bailey’s 2006 sits right next to it and nobody talks about it. He led the NFL with 10 interceptions and finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting, which is roughly where a cornerback’s ceiling sits in that award’s history. That isn’t a compiler having a nice year. That’s the same island, in Denver, three years earlier.
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Notice, too, that the receivers overlap. Moss, Owens and Holt show up on both résumés. Bailey just kept facing them for another six seasons.
Which is the part of the debate that gets lost. The case for Bailey isn’t that he did more for longer than a guy who did it better. It’s that he did it just as well, in a season people forgot, and then kept doing it.
Revis has the ring, and Bailey never won one. If that’s your tiebreaker, take Revis. Austin’s tiebreaker is a decade of Sundays, and that’s the harder thing to find.
