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Kenneth Le
For most, revenge games are about the motivation rather than the execution. Sean Payton told USA Today reporter Jarrett Bell that Nathaniel Hackett did “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL” in 2022, and Hackett naturally circled the Week 5 Jets-Broncos matchup on his calendar.
Hackett’s players mobbed and cheered him after the 31-21 win. Tight end C.J. Uzomah declared “This one was for Hack.” And I wouldn’t tell Hackett and the Jets to not enjoy it. They were an underdog on the road in Denver with Zach Wilson as their quarterback. And they needed a heroic 194-yard Breece Hall performance and final-minute Russell Wilson strip-sack and fumble-return touchdown to secure the victory. That overcoming of adversity spurs its own sort of satisfaction.
But my favorite revenge games are the dominant ones.
It’s fun to beat your former team. But it’s way more fun to embarrass them and spark a run of sports talk television segments about how they made a mistake to ever let you leave. And with the help of the DVOA differences between the winning and losing teams, I have uncovered the 12 most dominant revenge games so far this century. These paybacks make Hackett’s 26.3% DVOA margin seem friendly by comparison.
12. Brett Favre, QB, Minnesota Vikings
Week 4, 2009, vs. Green Bay Packers
DVOA Margin: 106.3%
Let’s start with an up-front lesson that revenge is in the eye of the beholder. The Packers were a model franchise decades before Aaron Rodgers began his self-love journey. But when Rodgers fell to the 24th pick in the 2005 draft, new GM Ted Thompson decided to draft the successor to his 36-year-old star quarterback Brett Favre. And that decision seemed prescient when Favre considered retiring after the 2005 season. But then Favre threatened to retire after the 2006 season. And while he did retire after the 2007 season, he clearly didn’t mean it. And just a few months later, the Packers traded Favre to the Jets.
Thompson presumably had an idea of how Favre felt about the team and the Rodgers draft pick because he put a “poison pill” in the trade deal that stipulated the Jets would owe the Packers three additional first-round picks if they in turn traded Favre to Minnesota. But after a season in New York — and a second short-term retirement — Favre could negotiate his release and sign with a new team with no Jets penalty. And he wanted to play for his former division rival. Favre declared in an NFL Films’ The Timeline episode that he “wanted to play for anyone who would play the Packers,” and he got his wish in Week 4 of the subsequent 2009 season.
The 30-23 Vikings win does not tell the full story of Favre’s dominant performance. The veteran quarterback completed 24 of 31 passes for 271 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. And following a Jared Allen sack of Rodgers in the end zone, the Vikings had a 30-14 lead midway through the fourth quarter that then faded as the Packers added a late touchdown and field goal of little consequence. Favre had his sought-after revenge, and he had it again a month later with four touchdowns, no interceptions and a 38-26 win in a Week 8 rematch.
If Favre wanted to prove to the Packers that he could play at an advanced age, he did just that. At 40 years old in 2009, he threw for the third-most passing yards (4,202) and fourth-most passing touchdowns (33) of his career. But Favre fell short of a ride off into the sunset when he threw across his body with 19 seconds left in the fourth quarter of a 28-28 NFC Championship game. The ensuing interception allowed the Saints to kick a game-winning field goal and eventually win Drew Brees his lone Super Bowl.
11. A.J. Brown, WR, Philadelphia Eagles
Week 13, 2022, vs. Tennessee Titans
DVOA Margin: 118.3%
The modern revenge tales tend to play out in some hilarious social media — which we will see in future entries. But former Titans receiver A.J. Brown was understated in his reaction to his 2022 trade to the Eagles. Brown explained to ESPN’s Turron Davenport that “This wasn’t my fault. I wanted to stay, but the deal they offered was a low offer.” The Titans had reportedly offered the 24-year-old star receiver contracts of around $20 million per year. Meanwhile, the Eagles extended Brown for four years and $100 million.
Brown wasn’t understated in his Week 13 matchup with his former team. He exploded for eight catches, 119 yards and two touchdowns. He more than doubled the four catches, 41 yards and one touchdown the remaining Titans receivers — including Treylon Burks, who the Titans drafted with one of the Eagles’ traded draft picks — combined to contribute. And Brown victimized his former cornerback teammate Kristian Fulton with a double move that saw Fulton both knocked to the ground and penalized for illegal contact while Brown skipped his way into the end zone.
After the game, Brown confirmed that he was after some revenge. “It’s been personal since the trade. That’s where I wanted to be … Things didn’t work out. It was kind of like ‘here you go, we don’t want you anymore.’ You just kind of get pushed to the side. In that situation, I had to grow up.”
Brown played like a man possessed that week and the rest of the season. The Eagles made it all the way to the Super Bowl. And that have a strong chance to return and win one with their undefeated start to this season.
10. Joey Harrington, QB, Miami Dolphins
Week 12, 2006, at Detroit Lions
DVOA Margin: 119.4%
Joey Harrington was hardly unique as an early 2000s Detroit Lions draft bust. But that didn’t shelter him from the criticism that followed his 2005 Thanksgiving benching and his head coach Steve Mariucci’s firing a few days later. Harrington’s teammate Dre’ Bly opined “We’re all at fault, but I just feel like Joey’s been here four years, and being the No. 3 pick in the draft, he hasn’t given us anything. He hasn’t given us what the third pick in the draft should give us.” Harrington finished his Lions tenure with 60 touchdowns and 62 interceptions, and the team traded him to Miami in the offseason.
The Dolphins added Harrington as a backup for Daunte Culpepper, who the team had traded a higher draft pick to acquire. But Culpepper’s myriad shoulder and knee injuries forced Harrington into the lineup — and likely sealed Nick Saban’s return to college coaching — and set up a fitting Thanksgiving return to Detroit in 2006.
Harrington had thrown his typical 7 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in his first six Dolphins starts. And perhaps rattled by the Lions’ pregame video package of his low-lights with the team — accompanied by Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” a reference to Harrington’s unusual proficiency as a piano player — Harrington started slowly and faced a 10-0 Dolphins deficit. But then he caught fire. Harrington threw three touchdowns in a string of 27 unanswered Dolphins points, and he defeated his former team 27-10.
It was Harrington’s just second post-Lions start with three touchdowns, and he wouldn’t have another in 14 more starts in his NFL career. Neither the Lions nor the Dolphins could have seen it coming. But the Lions certainly set themselves up for their potential public comeuppance. And Harrington undoubtedly reveled in his revenge for at least as long as it took him to return to Miami and discover a note from Billy Joel that joked that Lions should consider playing a different of his hits: “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
9. Malcolm Butler, CB, Tennessee Titans
Dion Lewis, RB, Tennessee Titans
Week 10, 2018, vs. New England Patriots
DVOA Margin: 124.2%
Malcolm Butler may not have made two decades of contributions to the Patriots dynasty the way that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick did. But Butler may have made the run’s most famous and important play when he intercepted Russell Wilson’s presumed rote touchdown pass to swing Super Bowl XLIX in its final seconds.
Just three years later, Belichick’s decision to bench Butler for Super Bowl LII was a shock. And while the public still does not know what spurred the decision, one could imagine Butler carrying a resentment to his new Titans team and a Week 10 matchup with the Patriots. But Butler seemed to have reconciled the end of his time in Boston. He exchanged pleasantries with Belichick after the Titans’ 34-10 blowout win, and he told reporters “It means a lot. Not nothing personal against New England, I’m just proud of the Tennessee Titans. We came out here and won a game no one expected us to win, hands down. Proud of my team and proud to be a part of this team.”
Butler allowed just two catches and 12 yards that week, but he seemed to see it as retribution for an underwhelming first half of his first Titans season rather than retribution against his former team. As Butler explained of his new fans’ dissatisfaction, “Take the cash and they’re on your ass.”
Fortunately for the revenge game fans, Dion Lewis was not so forgiving. “Hell yeah it’s personal. That’s what happens when you go cheap, you get your ass kicked.” The Patriots witnessed Lewis’ late-career breakout with 1,110 total yards and nine touchdowns in 2017 but then declined to re-sign him. Lewis led his backfield with 68 total yards against the Patriots, but he yielded a pair of rushing touchdowns to the much bigger Derrick Henry.
Unfortunately for Lewis, the Patriots recovered from the loss the way the frequently did in the era. After a Week 11 bye, Belichick’s team won four of their final six games, made the playoffs, and beat the Rams to win another Super Bowl.
8. Jamal Adams, S, Seattle Seahawks
Week 14, 2020, vs. New York Jets
DVOA Margin: 129.3%
If Dion Lewis teased the potential for revenge game fun in the modern media landscape, then Jamal Adams may have perfected it. The Jets safety was a star at just 25 years old with All-Pro distinctions in his second and third years with the team. And he fetched a star package in a 2020 offseason trade to the Seahawks of two first-round draft picks and one third-round draft pick.
After the trade, Adams tweeted a classy thank-you to all of his New York fans. But that class devolved into a delicious, public back-and-forth with Le’Veon Bell, who believed Adams betrayed him by recruiting him to join the Jets and then leaving for Seattle later in that same offseason. Adams responded “Noted. See u Week 14!”
The potential for revenge was high when Week 14 rolled around. Adam Gase’s Jets were 0-12 at the time, had just lost on a final-play deep Henry Ruggs touchdown, and had just fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams for allowing it to happen with a Cover-0 blitz.
In contrast, Adams was in the midst of a DB-record 12.0 sack season in just 12 games with the Seahawks. And he found his revenge with a sack plus five tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass defensed in a 40-3 dismantling of his former Jets team.
The Jets could have taken the loss as a favor in their race to tank for Trevor Lawrence. But Gase had his own sort of revenge in Week 15 and 16 wins over the Rams and Browns that dropped the team to second in the draft where they selected a likely bust in Zach Wilson. At least the Jets nabbed Alijah Vera-Tucker and Garrett Wilson with the picks they netted in the Adams trade.
Unfortunately, Adams has never played more than 12 games in any of his three seasons with the Seahawks because of myriad groin, quad, shoulder and head injuries. And he seems unlikely to do so in 2023 after missing three of the first four weeks. But bad injury luck hasn’t slowed Adams’ trolling of his former team. He reacted to their benching of top quarterback pick Zach Wilson with a famous Jay-Z look of pity. And he repeatedly dunked on the Jets when his Seahawks eliminated them from 2022 playoff contention in a Week 17 game where he didn’t even play.
7. Steve Smith, WR, Baltimore Ravens
Week 4, 2014, vs. Carolina Panthers
DVOA Margin: 138.0%
Steve Smith didn’t need social media to find an audience for his incredible sound bites. When the Panthers released their best ever receiver before the 2014 season, Smith told reporters “I want to make sure that whatever team I go to, they’re going to get the best, in shape 35-year-old guy they can get. If that happens to run through Bank of America Stadium, put your goggles on cause there’s going to be blood and guts everywhere.”
Smith got his wish with his new Ravens team with a Week 4 hosting of the Panthers. And as this Panthers can attest, Smith spilled some black, blue, and silver blood that Sunday. The Ravens routed Smith’s former team 38-10. And the veteran struck early with a bizarre 61-yard touchdown tip courtesy his teammate Owen Daniels in the first two minutes and often, ending the game with seven catches, 139 yards, and two touchdowns.
When John Harbaugh congratulated him after the win and his new record as the oldest receiver with 400 yards after the first four weeks, Smith joked of the label “An old man playing a young man’s game. Some of y’all are going to have to ice up!” A decade later, Panthers fans are still holding that ice to their bruises.
6. Jon Gruden, HC, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Week 21, 2002, vs. Raiders
DVOA Margin: 140.0%
Coaches have far fewer opportunities for revenge than players do. That’s what made an otherwise-unremarkable Week 5 Nathaniel Hackett besting of his former Broncos so fun. But imagine a coach with a similar grudge but with dramatically higher game stakes. As in a Super Bowl sort of stakes.
Jon Gruden found himself in that improbable situation in January of 2003. Gruden had enjoyed a lot of success with his former Raiders team, most notably in a near-miss of a Super Bowl trip in Tom Brady’s infamous “Tuck Rule” game. But, as Raiders receiver Tim Brown relayed to reporters, Gruden had set a deadline for owner Al Davis to either extend his contract or move on from him. And in a move that was more common at the time, Davis decided to trade Gruden to the Bucs for a haul of $8 million, two first-round and two second-round draft picks — more than the team returned in their trade of star pass rusher Khalil Mack almost two decades later.
Gruden did not see his former Raiders team on his first regular season calendar. But fate matched them up in Super Bowl XXXVII, and Gruden found his revenge in a 48-21 blowout and Super Bowl title. Gruden did not need to dig too deeply into his bag of former offensive coordinator tricks as his defense full of future Hall of Famers like Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, John Lynch, and Ronde Barber intercepted Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon five times. The Bucs were up 34-3 late in the third quarter, and they cruised to an easy victory.
Gruden eventually reconciled with the Davis family and returned to coach the Raiders in 2018. He resigned in 2021 after his emails with misogynistic and homophobic language leaked to the press.
5. Jarvis Landry, WR, Cleveland Browns
Week 12, 2019 vs. Miami Dolphins
DVOA Margin: 140.4%
At 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds, Jarvis Landry did not look like a normal No. 1 NFL receiver. But he played to that standard with an outsized toughness and pride. And that pride shined when his drafting Dolphins team franchise-tagged him, refused to extend him, traded him to the Browns, and signed an apparent replacement in Albert Wilson to a three-year, $24 million contract a few days later.
Landry had a strong reaction in the moment.
And Landry later told reporters “I just felt like, for some reason, Adam sent me here to die.”
The “Adam” in question is Adam Gase — remember him from the Jamal Adams one? Apparently, Gase used to joke that he would ship players in his doghouse to Cleveland if they didn’t straighten up. That joke was itself a reference to Bill Belichick’s trade of former Patriots star linebacker Jamie Collins to the Browns on Halloween of 2016.
Landry had things a little better than Collins did. Where the latter joined a then-winless Browns team that went on to a 1-15 record under historically unsuccessful head coach Hue Jackson, Landry joined a franchise on the other side of its incredible nadir. The Browns threatened .500 with a 7-8-1 record in 2018, and the team added Landry’s former LSU teammate Odell Beckham to foster some real playoff hopes for 2019.
The Browns fell short of that postseason standard. But they looked the part a Week 12 dismantling of Landry’s former Dolphins team 41-24. The Browns were up 28-3 at the half. And Landry set the pace with 10 catches, 148 yards and two touchdowns.
Landry could have been more vindictive. Albert Wilson went on to catch just 94 passes in four seasons with the Dolphins. Landry had caught at least 94 passes in each of his final three seasons with the team. But Landry seemed more concerned with having fun with his new-old teammate Beckham. When he scored his first touchdown, he and Beckham celebrated with the dance from DaBaby’s recent, famous BOP video. And Landry continued his broader success with Pro Bowl berths in his first two Browns season and as part of the 2020 playoff team, the Browns’ first since 2002.
4. Trent Green, QB, Kansas City Chiefs
Dick Vermeil, HC, Kansas City Chiefs
Week 14, 2002, vs. St. Louis Rams
DVOA Margin: 152.2%
Trent Green and Dick Vermeil did not share the vengeful dispositions of many of their contemporaries on this list. Green lost his Rams starting job in a Drew Bledsoe-like fashion when he suffered a preseason knee injury in 1999 and passed the reigns to a then-unknown Kurt Warner. But Green was never resentful. He acted professionally and helped Warner in his run to a Super Bowl title that season — a fact that Warner confirmed and thanked Green for in his Hall of Fame induction speech.
Vermeil coached that improbable Warner Super Bowl run, retired after and publicly regretted it. Vermeil was an infamous overworker and burnout sufferer. He had taken 14 years off of coaching in the early 1980s to mid-1990s because of burnout. And he later reflected on his second brief retirement, saying it was a “Poor decision — I made a mistake. My family wanted me home and I was tired, and I didn’t want to cut the squad and go into free agency, and I thought at my age, to go out a champion was a great opportunity.”
A recovered Green and an unretired Vermeil found themselves reunited on the 2001 Chiefs and facing their former Rams team in Week 14 of the following season. Those Rams were down an injured quarterback starter in Kurt Warner and injured backup in Marc Bulger and on the verge of elimination from the playoffs. Predictably, the Chiefs blew them out 49-10. But it wasn’t mean-spirited. Green threw for a modest 100 yards and one touchdown on just 15 pass attempts as Priest Holmes and Dante Hall did the bulk of the damage — the former with 132 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries and the latter with both a kick- and a punt-return touchdown. This was part of Hall’s run of seven return touchdowns in just 10 games from 2002-03. He did not match Devin Hester or Cordarrelle Patterson for longevity, but Hall was one of the greatest returners in NFL history.
Vermeil summed the good-natured blowout up in saying “There’s nothing vindictive or personal” in regards to beating the St. Louis Rams. And while neither team made the playoffs in 2022, the Rams returned in 2003 and 2004. And the Chiefs made it with both Green and Vermeil in 2003, and Green enjoyed a late-career renaissance with his only two Pro Bowl seasons in 2003 and 2005 at 33 and 35 years old.
3. Lawyer Milloy, S, Buffalo Bills
Drew Bledsoe, QB, Buffalo Bills
Week 1, 2003, vs. New England Patriots
DVOA Margin: 165.3%
I know you didn’t believe there would only be one Bill Belichick entry on this list!
Belichick may already have had his first Super Bowl ring by 2003. But he didn’t yet have his current reputation as a cutthroat general manager more willing to trade his star veterans a year too early than a year too late. Belichick released his two-time All-Pro, four-time Pro Bowl, and seven-year Patriots defensive captain Lawyer Milloy on September 2, less than a week before the start of the 2022 season when Milloy declined to take a put cut. The move saved the team $5.9 million in cap space and set up an immediate opportunity for revenge when Milloy joined the Bills before their Week 1 Patriots matchup.
Drew Bledsoe was more a victim of bad luck than of Belichick’s cold decision-making. The veteran went from signing a record-setting 10-year, $103 million contract to losing his starting job and being traded to the Bills in less than a calendar year. But given that the Kurt Warner to Bledsoe’s Trent Green was the eventual best quarterback of all time, Tom Brady, it’s difficult to call it an injustice.
Milloy played the bigger part of what became a 31-0 beatdown of the Patriots, tipping one of Tom Brady’s four interceptions to his teammate Nate Clements and adding another five tackles, one tackle for a loss, and one sack. But Bledsoe wrapped all the insanity into an understated box, telling reporters “We were both pretty happy with the win.”
This one of Tom Brady’s just six career games with four interceptions — he never threw five. And it was one of his just two games with four interceptions and no touchdowns.
Inspired by the blowout, ESPN’s Tom Jackson infamously declared that the Patriots players hated their coach. But if so, they got over it quickly. The Patriots rebounded from the loss to finish 14-2 that season, flipped the script with a 31-0 win over the Bills in their Week 17 rematch — Brady threw four touchdowns and no interceptions — and win the Super Bowl that year and four more times in Brady’s and Belichick’s tenure with the team.
2. Haason Reddick, LB, Carolina Panthers
Week 10, 2021, at Arizona Cardinals
DVOA Margin: 174.4%
The 13th overall draft pick in 2017, Haason Reddick had underwhelmed in his first three Cardinals seasons. A perceived tweener at 6-foot-1 and 237 pounds, Reddick started his career at an unfamiliar inside linebacker position and struggled. And fresh off the disappointment of the team’s declining of his fifth-year option, Reddick asked his coaches to switch back to the edge rusher role that he played so effectively at Temple. To put it mildly, the switch was a massive success. Reddick nearly doubled his total of 6.5 sacks from his first three seasons with 12.5 sacks in 2020. But since the Cardinals had already declined his option, Reddick was free to leave in free agency and join the Panthers.
When Reddick returned to Arizona to play the Cardinals in Week 10 that next season, the Panthers were an underdog on paper. The Cardinals boasted the better win-loss record of 8-1 versus 4-5. And while they had lost their normal quarterback Kyler Murray to a sprained ankle and were poised to play Colt McCoy, the Panthers had lost their normal starter Sam Darnold to a scapular fracture and were poised to play PJ Walker.
Or so everyone thought.
The Panthers’ Cam Newton reunion proved to be more a ticket-seller than a means to make a playoff push. The team went on to lose their next seven games to close the season. But in Week 10 in Arizona, Newton was his old self. In just nine snaps versus Walker’s 66, Newton threw and ran in a pair of 2-yard touchdowns. And with the help of another former Cardinals player in kicker Zane Gonzalez, the Panthers built a 23-0 halftime lead that helped Reddick rack up 1.5 sacks and three quarterback hits. The Panthers went on to win the game 34-10.
Reddick fell 1.5 sacks short of the 12.5-sack standard he set in his final Cardinals season in his one year in Carolina. But the now-veteran push rusher parlayed his back-to-back 11-plus sack seasons into a three-year, $45 million Eagles contract. And Reddick did set a new career mark with 16.0 sacks in 2022 and made the Super Bowl.
1. Terrell Owens, WR, Philadelphia Eagles
Week 2, 2005, vs. San Francisco 49ers
DVOA Margin: 181.3%
There was never a doubt which player would land at No. 1.
It would take a full article to explain the fracturing of Terrell Owens’ relationship with the 49ers. Some highlights include when 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci suspended Owens for celebrating a pair of touchdowns by running into the Dallas Cowboys’ star and when Owens blew up a potential Ravens trade and forced his way to Philadelphia.
Owens’ first Eagles season was more about his new team than his old team. That Eagles squad made the Super Bowl, and Owens nearly single-handedly won it with nine catches and 122 yards against the Patriots. But in 2005, Owens’ opportunity for revenge came quickly in a Week 2 hosting of the 49ers. And the veteran receiver took full advantage. Owens caught a 68-yard touchdown in the first minute of the game and then followed it with a 42-yard touchdown early in the second quarter. All told, Owens racked up 143 yards and two touchdowns despite a modest seven targets. He gained more yards on passes than the 49ers did as a team (107).
Owens’ 42-3 dispatching of his former 49ers team proved to be his last great Eagles moment. He was suspended less than two months later for conduct detrimental to the team — he called the organization classless for not recognizing his 100th career touchdown catch, and said they would be better off with Brett Favre than with Donovan McNabb at quarterback — and never played another game for the team.
Ironically given his previous touchdown celebrations, Owens joined the Cowboys in 2006. And given the division, he saw a chance for some Eagles revenge in Week 6. Owens came up short with just three catches on 13 targets and a 38-24 loss that week. But that will never rob him of the greatest revenge game in DVOA history.
