Corey Davis aims to replicate these New York Jets revenge games
This Sunday, an NFL playoff staple goes up against his former team in a highly anticipated Week 4 showdown, one that features a reeling AFC East team in the throes of a premature must-win game if they plan on making any sort of impact in the standings.
Of course, we’re referring to Corey Davis‘ afternoon get-together with the Tennessee Titans (1 p.m. ET, CBS).
Davis will face off against his former employers for the first time since inking a three-year, $37.5 million contract with the New York Jets in March. Tennessee visits a winless Jets team seeking a mere touchdown, never mind a victory, hours before Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady makes his return to New England to battle the team he helped guided to six Super Bowls (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).
In celebrations of these anticipated reunions – one more so than the other – Jet X looks back at some of the best revenge games in modern Jets history, a list that, ironically, features plenty of ex-Patriots antics.
10/19/97: Tuna Cans O’Donnell
Upon taking the head coaching role for the single-win Jets after leading the Patriots to Super Bowl XXXI, Bill Parcells had two early chances to make a statement against his former team. The first, a Week 3 Sunday nighter, produced an overtime loss but the Jets went on to win three in a row before losing to Miami just prior to the rematch.
With the Jets down by an uncanny 5-3 halftime score, Parcells removed franchise quarterback Neil O’Donnell in favor of backup Glenn Foley. The fourth-year, seventh-round choice out of Rutgers and Cherry Hill, NJ went on to complete 14 consecutive passes in the second half, the 11th of which was a five-yard scoring pass to Lorenzo Neal that gave the Jets a permanent 24-19 lead.
10/15/00: CM Punks the Pats
Once absconded in New York, Curtis Martin never passed on an opportunity to show his former employers in New England what they were missing.
Martin went on to post triple-digit yardage games in five returns to Foxboro, the most prolific of which was a 143-yard performance that saw him score a career-best three touchdowns in a 34-17 win.
In the following year, the Jets’ final visit to the late Foxboro Stadium, Martin had the only touchdown in New York’s 10-3 triumph, a game remembered by both Gang Green and the Patriots for another particular play.
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11/12/06: Mangini Whacks Belichick
Eric Mangini won’t appear in The Many Saints of Newark, but he earned a cameo in The Sopranos thanks in part to a successful invasion of Foxboro in his first season as the Jets’ head coach after leaving Belichick’s coaching staff.
New York earned a rare victory at Gillette Stadium through four sacks (the last by Shaun Ellis on the final play of the game) and an Erik Coleman interception of Brady while Chad Pennington‘s 22-yard scoring hook-up with Jerricho Cotchery served as the deciding score of a 17-14 triumph.
12/27/15: Christmas Rev
So beloved a figure is Darelle Revis in the annals of Jets history that fans can look past his victorious one-year sojourn to New England in 2014 (which, in a partly-reversed Brady situation, followed another single season in Tampa Bay).
Revis returned to New York with a Super Bowl ring and would go on to provide one of the last great Jets moments at MetLife Stadium: his interception at the start of the second half set up a New York touchdown that gave them a two-possession lead en route to a 26-20 overtime thriller. It was the fifth interception of his return to New York and wound up becoming the penultimate takeaway of his NFL career.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
