2024 Wild Card Revenge Weekend!

“Revenge is a dish best served cold” …what does that even mean? Most dishes are great served warm, Soup… soup is great served warm. Pizza is the best when it’s warm, anyone who likes cold pizza over warm pizza should be put in a psych ward and evaluated for James Bond Villain Syndrome. The only thing I can think of that wouldn’t be good served warm is Ice Cream, who wants a boiling hot ice cream cone? I don’t know maybe an Eskimo who hasn’t seen the sun in 18 days living in the northwest corner of Greenland during the winter months would love some boiled sugar milk but that’s about it. Ummm I’m being told that the saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold” has nothing to do with food… well I feel dumb. According to EnglishClub.com the saying suggests, “if someone does something bad to us, it is better to pay them back later in time, not immediately.” I think this saying describes the 2024 NFL wild Card Weekend to a T.  There are so many matchups between players and their old teams that have been marinating in their brains for years and this is the moment to prove who wronged who. We should really change the name of this year’s Wild Card Weekend to Revenge Wild Card Weekend.

Let’s start in the most obvious revenge spot, The Streaming service Peacock. Is NBC and Peacock taking revenge on all the old people for not paying their cable bills over the years. It is a downright shame that you put any playoff game on a streaming service let alone a match up like Chiefs, Dolphins. My dad calls me weekly wondering if we have Peacock because the Big Ten decided they needed more money by throwing college basketball on a streaming platform, you already gouge us out of a load of money for the Big Ten Network, why throw games on Peacock… That being said they got me and I signed up for a free trial of Peacock just so I can watch a couple of Dolphins try to swim in freezing cold Kansas City water… Ohhhh and you better believe it Comcast, I’m sharing that password with my father… Hold on, wait a Tyreek Hill 40 yard dash second… 30 Rocks on Peacock? I love 30 Rock, maybe I’ll keep it a little bit longer so I can binge that whole series… Anyways, The Dolphins and Tyreek Hill are traveling north to Kansas City for a very cold Tyreek Hill revenge game. Tyreek Hill left the comfort and safety of Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes back in 2022 to explore a new opportunity down in Miami. Tyreek Hill got paid more money to live in a warmer climate with less taxes who wouldn’t take that deal. The only problem was that he was leaving behind a Super Bowl organization, with a young Tom Brady chasing QB, who happened to win a Super Bowl the first year without him but instead he decided to head to a bad run organization with a young QB that has injury problems. Well, that decision Tyreek made can all make sense when the Dolphins show up in 0-degree Kansas City wearing giant flamingo lined parkas and take down the defending champs in their own home.

Probably the friendliest revenge game of the weekend is going to be The Rams and Matt Stafford coming home to Detroit to face his old Lions team. It’s more like a homecoming for the Lions great more than it is a revenge game. Matt must miss the smell of rusty old Fords in the morning, he might wake up, wipe the fog off his Holiday Express hotel room window and see Ford Field glistening in the gray skies of Detroit, take a giant whiff of that Rust-Oleum filled air and be ready to gut the Lions with every hubcap from the old Ford ranger plant.  It should be a friendly environment filled with cheers and congratulations for Matt Stafford when he walks into Ford Field on Sunday night. Or is it? We can’t forget the other side of the story. When Stafford got traded to the Rams back in 2021 someone had to get traded to the Lions and that person was Jared Goff. Sean McVay didn’t think he could win a Super Bowl with Jared Goff as his quarterback, so he went out and got Matt Stafford from the Lions. It’s not like McVay was wrong about that. Clearly, he needed Stafford to get this team over the hump and lift the Lombardi. So, this isn’t a friendly game for Jared Goff by any means, this is a I have a chip on my shoulder and want to end the Rams season more than anything, just to stick it to McVay and the Rams organization, game for Jared Goff. It’s going to be a great environment in Detroit, how can it not be? It’s the first time they have hosted a playoff game in 30 years, Ford Field will be rocking more than an Eminem concert. The NFL did a bad thing by putting a game behind a streaming services paywall, but they redeemed themselves by throwing this game on Sunday Night in The Motor City.

The only Head Coach revenge game this week is Mike McCarthy vs is old Green Bay Packers team. The Dallas Cowboys are welcoming the youngest playoff team since the 1977 Chicago Bears into Jerry World. The Green Bay Packers have an average player age of 25 years old, while being coached by a chiseled man with a beard that definitely has a little Just for Men touch of gray in it to make him look more distinguished. Matt Lafleur looks like he’s 25 doing a cover shoot for Carhartt sweaters every time he stops foot on the frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. The Matt Lafleur lead Packers are going to try and do what no team has done this year and that’s beat the Cowboys at home. The Cowboys have been downright Ethan Hunt impossible to beat at home this year by going 8-0 during the regular season. Maybe the main reason is that Mike McCarthy has taken over offensive play calling for the Cowboys this year and the offense has done nothing but flourish under his tutelage. But this isn’t the first time that Mike McCarthy has had a great offense. He had a great run while he was in Green Bay, but the problem was everyone attribute it to a Hall of Fame quarterback named Aaron Rodgers. But the second things seemed to go bad the whole town of Green Bay turned on him like spoiled cheese that has been left in the fridge for 8 months too long. (I’ve been meaning to throw that out) Who else would they blame besides the coach, they would never turn on their ayahuasca using quarterback, it was never old Aaron Rodgers’ fault. So, what happened to poor Mike McCarthy he was chased out of town by the cheese head wearing pitchfork wielding town folk of Green Bay and their town leader Aaron Rodgers. But he found a new home in Dallas and this game on Sunday Afternoon is an all-time coach’s revenge game, he really wants to prove that the Packers made the wrong choice in firing him, but it will be a tall task to take down these young charismatic Packers if history has anything to say about it. The Packers have had the Cowboys number over the last serval years. The Packers have won 9 of the last 10 meetings against the Cowboys including playoffs, so if history has anything to say about Sunday’s game it says Mike McCarthy is going to have his hands full with more than just wings dipped in blue cheese.

Wild Card Revenge Weekend is going to be way too much fun with 2 games on Saturday, 3 on Sunday and a pleasant surprise of a Monday night game, where I think we get Peyton and Eli bickering at each other for four hours. Get ready for a lot of action and most likely some upsets. I can’t wait to see how Young C.J. Stroud does against that brutally tough defense of the Cleveland Browns or how an older banished from the league Joe Flacco continues to reignite his career, that’s going to be a great game. Can Mike Tomlin continue his amazing coaching run by beating the hottest team in the NFL in Buffalo in what will most likely be a blizzard game. What about a Monday night showdown between the nose-diving Eagles and the rejuvenated Baker Mayfield lead Buccaneers. That has upset written all over it especially under the shadow of the pirate ship at Raymond James Stadium. It’s going to be a great weekend of games I can’t wait for them to get started. Enjoy the games this weekend and make sure you do your free trial of Peacock so you can watch Chiefs Dolphins playing in one of the coldest games we may ever see and maybe if you’re bored Sunday morning get some use out of your free trial and turn on a little 30 Rock to pass the time till the next kick off.