The 7 best NFL revenge games of the last 25 years, ranked

Welcome to Revenge Week at SB Nation NFL, where we are celebrating the dish that’s best served cold. You can keep up with all our latest revenge content here.

It’s easy to find opportunities for revenge in the NFL. In a league where players and coaches are constantly shuffled across the various teams, grudges are bound to form.

Some beefs are built due to teams moving on to younger players. Others are generated via a trade to a new team. In rare cases, they’re created by a scorned player taking the league to federal court.

The past 25 years in the NFL have given us Hall of Fame-caliber moments of pettiness. Here are our picks for the top revenge games in the last quarter century, ranked in reverse order.

As a Falcons fan, it pains me to write this — but Super Bowl 51 was kind of a revenge game for the 2016 Patriots.

Remember how that season started. Tom Brady was suspended four games for his role in Deflategate, but he didn’t just accept his suspension. He was initially supposed to serve his four-game suspension at the start of the 2015 season, but a federal judge overturned Roger Goodell’s ruling, allowing Brady to play the entirety of that season.

In April 2016, the U.S. Appeals court reinstated Brady’s suspension, which kept him out of the first four games of the 2016 season. Brady grappled with the decision to bring Deflategate to the Supreme Court in June 2016, but opted to take the suspension.

(Looking back, it’s fairly amazing that the federal courts got involved with ... deflating footballs.)

The Patriots used a combination of Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett to go 3-1 in those four games, setting the stage for Brady to make his triumphant return. Brady threw 28 touchdowns to just two interceptions over his next 12 starts — the Patriots went 11-1 in those games — and made it to Super Bowl 51 against Atlanta.

Everyone knows what happens next. New England stormed back from a 28-3 deficit in roughly 17 minutes of game time and won the first overtime game in Super Bowl history. After all the fighting Brady did against the NFL, he came out on top in dramatic fashion at the end of the season.

Maybe this should be ranked higher, but as the biased arbitrator of this list, I will not allow it.

It took Peyton Manning two tries, but he was able to beat the Indianapolis Colts in 2014 in his third season with the Denver Broncos. Manning outplayed Andrew Luck, throwing for a nice 269 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

Luck was selected by the Colts first overall in the 2012 NFL Draft, after they had decided to move on from Manning, who missed the entire 2011 season due to a neck injury. The first time Manning and Luck faced off, Luck came away the winner in a 39-33 shootout during the 2013 season. Manning was able to secure the win during round two.

Manning threw all three touchdowns to tight end Julius Thomas, including a 35-yard touchdown after which Thomas hit the Shmoney dance in the end zone.

The Colts wound up getting the last laugh that season when they topped the Broncos 24-13 in the Divisional Round, but Week 1 of the 2014 season belonged to Manning.

Indianapolis beat Manning one more time during the 2015 season, but Manning finished the year with a Super Bowl ring to cap off his Hall of Fame career. The Colts have yet to make it that far since Manning left.

When the Panthers released Steve Smith after the 2013 season, he said that if he ever played against them there would be “blood and guts everywhere.” He got a chance to follow through on that promise after he signed a three-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens.

And BOY, did he deliver.

In Week 4 of the 2014 season, Carolina traveled to Baltimore to face off against the former Panther great and he absolutely shredded them. Smith caught seven passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns, and the Ravens rolled to a 38-10 win.

The highlight of Smith’s afternoon was catching a 61-yard touchdown that wasn’t even intended for him. The ball bounced off of Owen Daniels’ hands and Smith just happened to be in the right place at the right time to leave his former team in the dust.

Uncharacteristically, Smith didn’t trash talk the Panthers during or after the game. His play that day said enough.

This was the only game that Smith got to play against Carolina — he certainly made the most of it.

Jon Gruden got the last laugh after the Oakland Raiders traded him to the Buccaneers prior to the 2002 season. In his first season in Tampa Bay, Gruden led the Bucs to Super Bowl XXXVII, which just so happened to be against the Raiders.

The Bucs’ defense absolutely decimated the Raiders in a game that was the absolute peak for Tampa Bay. Rich Gannon, the MVP of the 2002 season, threw five interceptions (still a Super Bowl record!) — and three of them were returned for touchdowns. After kicking a field goal on the first drive of the game, the Raiders failed to get near the end zone and found themselves down 20-3 at halftime. The final score — 48-21 — wasn’t much better.

Gruden’s relationship with the Raiders came full circle when he was re-hired as the coach in 2018, signing a 10-year, $100 million deal. Gruden destroyed the team that traded him on the biggest stage the NFL has to offer, then received $100 million from them roughly 15 years later.

That’s poetry in motion.

After spending five seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, Deion Sanders signed a one-year deal with their then-NFC West rival San Francisco 49ers.

In typical “Primetime” fashion, Sanders put on a show when the 49ers traveled to Atlanta in Week 7 of the 1994 season. The 49ers steamrolled the Falcons 42-3 and Sanders contributed to that score with a 93-yard interception return.

Once he was clear of all the Falcons’ offensive players, Sanders stared down the Atlanta sideline on his way into the end zone.

Sanders got into a small fight with Falcons receiver Andre Rison prior to the interception return. Rison only caught five passes for 32 yards in the game — Sanders almost tripled that yardage on his interception return.

When Joe Montana missed the entire 1991 season and just about all of the 1992 season, the 49ers had a huge decision to make about their quarterback position. Montana won four Super Bowls and two MVPs in San Francisco, but the emergence of Steve Young over those two years made Montana expendable.

The 49ers committed to Young for the future, which paved the way for Montana to request a trade after the 1992 season. Montana was eventually traded to the Kansas City Chiefs before the 1993 season. The Chiefs coincidentally had a game against the 49ers in 1994, which was the only time Montana played against his former team.

Montana made the most of his opportunity to play against the 49ers, throwing for 203 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-17 win. His first touchdown pass of the day had a little bit of trickery involved. The Chiefs sent offensive lineman Joe Valerio on a route into the end zone and Montana floated a perfect pass to him while he was being pressured.

Montana beating the man that replaced him had to feel good. At least for Young’s sake, he was able to win the Super Bowl that season to escape Joe Montana’s shadow.

Sorry, Packers fans. A list of revenge games can’t be complete without Brett Favre’s legendary return to Lambeau Field.

After 16 years with the Packers — and one unspectacular year with the New York Jets — Favre signed a deal with the Minnesota Vikings for the 2009 season. Joining the Packers’ longtime NFC North rival guaranteed that Favre would be returning to Green Bay during the regular season. He’d also get to face off against his former backup who he had a bit of a tense relationship with: Aaron Rodgers.

In Week 8, Favre got his chance to show the Packers he could still play at a high level — and he did just that. Favre obliterated the Green Bay defense on his way to four touchdowns, three of which came in the second half to put the game away.

Even at 40 years old, Favre still had his trademark arm strength that dazzled Packers fans for almost two decades. Just look at the velocity on this throw to Percy Harvin.

In two wins against the Packers that season, Favre threw seven touchdowns, zero interceptions, completed 69.4 percent of his passes, and didn’t sacked a single time. Revenge doesn’t get sweeter than that.