Unpopular Opinions Ranking sweetest NFL victories since 2010

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Unpopular Opinions: Ranking sweetest NFL victories since 2010 Published: Dec 19, 2018 at 06:12 AM NFL.com Writer Michael Porter Jersey The are your NFC North champions, so decreed by the football gods, as if George S. Halas himself had reached his hand down to make it so. Although nothing delivered the me sage as emphatically as . The didn't just win the division on Sunday to end a seven-season playoff drought -- they did it , the . It's a rivalry my colleague Andrew Siciliano called "the greatest in football" on "TNF First Look" last week (so I didn't have to). And the sight of being sacked repeatedly and ultimately vanquished from playoff contention conjured up images from my favorite Christmas movie of all time -- "Die Hard" -- of Hans Gruber So, welcome to the playoffs, pals. And while I could spend another 900 words talking about what that win meant to me, my family and really the greater good of football, I'm focusing this week on five of the sweetest victories since 2010. It would be easy to cite a bunch of marquee postseason games here, but that's not what this is. We're talking about games where intangible things were on the line, like . Here are my rankings, starting with a game played on a mid-November evening eight years ago. 5) Nov. 15, 2010: Michael Vick leads Eagles past Redskins This was supposed to be a Donovan McNabb revenge game, or at least the sequel. McNabb signed with Washington (with $40 million guaranteed) just hours before kickoff. This despite being benched a few weeks earlier. McNabb also said the by trading him to Washington before the season and talked a mean game over the team with which he had spent the first 11 seasons of his NFL career. Tensions were high as the "Monday Night Football" cameras rolled. The two longtime NFC East rivals got into , because LaRon Landry was on the first play from scrimmage, and that was that. The cruised in . Vick finished with 333 pa sing yards and four touchdown pa ses. He also rushed for 80 yards and a pair of scores. (And I don't mind telling you, I started Vick on my fantasy team that night.) McNabb, meanwhile, completed le s than 55 percent of his pa ses and was picked off three times. ahead of the 2011 season, which proved to be his last in the NFL. 4) Jan. 8, 2012: Tim Tebow over the Steelers Tebow remains one of the most polarizing players in sports today. The only thing is, the sport is now minor league baseball. Wait, that story is still a thing, right? ( ) At any rate, back in the 2011 season, Tebow sparked a groundswell of enthusiasm as the ' quarterback. More like a Tebow Tsunami, actually. Despite the, uh, unconventional ways he was winning at the position (he went 7-4 as a, shall we say, run-oriented QB who racked up 660 rushing yards while throwing for 123.5 yards per game and generating a 72.9 pa ser rating), Tebow was beloved by (most) fans. But the media and even NFL players themselves had taken shots. Hell, I myself might have even . The sort of limped into the playoffs with three consecutive lo ses, but despite being 8-8, played host to the 12-4 on Wild Card Weekend as the champions of the AFC West. Everybody expected the to roll through little Timmy on the way to a rematch with the . Even when the game went into overtime, few expected the to emerge victorious. And then Tebow hit on a strike (to be fair, it really was a strike) on the first play from scrimmage and for . I mean, the pandemonium in Denver was wild. Even front-office honcho John Elway, who had kind of watched over Tebow like the mean principal in every teen movie, couldn't contain himself in the aftermath. It was pretty great. 3) Oct. 2, 2016: Drew Brees over the Chargers Man, the made such a good pair of decisions when they selected running back LaDainian Tomlinson (who is in the Hall of Fame) fifth Michael Porter Jr. Jersey overall and Brees (who will be) 32nd overall in the 2001 . Unfortunately for the Bolts, however, Brees' career started slowly (59.4 percent completion rate, 5,613 pa sing yards, 29 touchdowns, 31 interceptions and a 73.7 pa ser rating in his first three seasons), and the team ended up panic-picking quarterback in 2004 and trading him for on the same day. Of course, Brees started to become, well, Brees, throwing for 51 touchdowns and compiling a 96.1 pa ser rating in the next two seasons. between then-coach Marty Schottenheimer (who seemed to favor Brees) and then-general manager A.J. Smith (who seemed to like the rookie he landed in 2004). when Brees injured his labrum at the end of the 2005 season (with Marty in a meaningle s Week 17 contest), and the , with the QB ending up in New Orleans. While Rivers developed into a great player, Brees took his career to another level, reeling off 5,000-yard seasons and winning the ' first . By the time of this 2016 clash, the and had met twice previously, but this was Brees' first trip back to San Diego since the unpleasantne s. And boy, did Brees deliver, rallying the for a pair of scores in the final five minutes to cap . in the moments after the game, but there is no doubt he enjoyed some sweet revenge. 2) Sept, 28, 2014: Steve Smith crushes his former team I'm not 100 percent sure, but with after the 2013 season. I mean, that, if he ever faced his former team, it would be time to "put your goggles on, 'cause there's going to be blood and guts everywhere." Before you dismi s that as descriptive hyperbole from the charismatic future Hall of Famer, realize he was actually kind of underselling it. Because Smith, who ended up , went for 139 yards and a pair of touchdowns ( ) against his former team in 2014. "That film was a coaching se sion. They're going to be coaching it. I'm 35 years old, and I ran around them boys like they were school-yard kids," . So, yes, I'm gue sing he enjoyed that. 1) 2016: The Patriots over the world, post-Deflategate In "Ocean's 11," describes the tenaciousne s of target Terry Benedict as such: "At the end of this, he'd BETTER not know you're involved, not know your names or think you're dead because he'll kill ya, and then he'll go to work on ya." And that's what the ' 2016 season kind of felt like. Brady served for Deflategate (don't get me started) and then returned to throw for 406 yards and three touchdowns. He would lose one more game the entire season. The ( the Deflategate saga) and ( ) didn' Vlatko CanCar Jersey t even make the playoffs that year, so Brady instead. And then he rallied his team for in history. All the while, I was standing in the tunnel at NRG Stadium during LI and asking myself why I was rooting for the this whole time. Brady got his ultimate victory -- and looking back, it's kind of like what happened in the "Karate Kid," but only if Johnny had actually been able to sweep the leg. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be mi sing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an i sue.
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