Revenge is a dish best served cold. When somebody you trusted does you wrong, it’s natural to want to cause them as much pain as they caused you. While that’s true in real life, it’s also true in the NFL.

Revenge games are a small part of what makes football so much fun to watch. Every season, there are a handful of players that feel like their team did them wrong in contract negotiations and either walk in free agency or get traded, and for a select few of them, they get a chance at revenge in their first season with their new team.

This year has no shortage of revenge games on the schedule, so today we’re going to go over some of the biggest ones on the calendar.

Kansas City Chiefs at Seattle Seahawks

Kenneth Walker has been underutilized in Seattle for his entire career. Despite being clearly the better runner, the Seattle Seahawks were adamant on him splitting carries with Zach Charbonnet, which has kept Walker from ever eclipsing the 1,100-yard mark in a single season.

When Charbonnet went down with an injury, though, Walker showed everyone that he’s one of the best running backs in the league, rushing for 313 yards and four touchdowns in three playoff games. After his playoff run, which included winning Super Bowl MVP, the Seahawks refused to pay him what he was worth, so he signed with the Kansas City Chiefs this offseason.

Now, as a member of the Chiefs, Walker will return to Lumen Field to face his former team. Will he be able to wreak havoc on Seattle? Or does Mike Macdonald know him well enough to bottle him up?

Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Rams

The Chiefs had one of the best defenses in the league last year, giving up just 19.3 points per game, which ranked fifth in the league. A large reason for that was because of their secondary, which included All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie and two-time Super Bowl champion Jaylen Watson.

Both Watson and McDuffie were about ready to be due for a contract extension. McDuffie was coming up on the end of his rookie contract, and Watson didn’t have any years left on his deal, but instead of paying both of them, or even just one of them, the Chiefs traded McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams and let Watson walk in free agency, and of course, Watson ended up signing with the Rams.

So, when the Chiefs make a trip to Los Angeles this year, the Rams will have two star cornerbacks ready to make their former quarterback, Patrick Mahomes’, life hell.

Instead of ponying up the cash to pay one of these two, the Chiefs basically handed them to one of their biggest Super Bowl rivals on a silver platter. Now, the Rams fill their biggest need and got even better, and the Chiefs now have to go to LA and find a way to beat them. Not ideal for Kansas City.

Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals

Trey Hendrickson spent yeas trying to get his bag from the Cincinnati Bengals, but Cincy kept finding ways to avoid giving him a long-term extension. Hendrickson has been one of the best pass rushers in the NFL for six years now, five of which came with Cincinnati, and he’s only earned over $20 million in a single season one time, which was last year, when he made $27 million.

With Hendrickson’s contract finally up, this offseason was his chance to finally get the money he deserves, but Cincinnati was never going to be the team to give it to him. At 31 years old, they didn’t want to pay him the $30 million per year he was asking for, so he hit the open market, and after quite a long time, he finally signed a deal with the Baltimore Ravens for $28 million per season.

While I’ll never feel bad for someone making more money in a year than I’ll make in my lifetime, the Bengals did Hendrickson dirty. Top edge rushers are getting paid north of $40 million a season nowadays, and the Bengals refused to pay him big money while he was in his prime. Now, he settled for an under-market deal because of his age.

I can guarantee you that as soon as the schedule releases, Hendrickson will have their two matchups against Cincinnati circled, especially the one in Cincy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has 3+ sacks in their two matchups against the Bengals this season.

Las Vegas Raiders at New York Jets

Geno Smith’s time in Las Vegas did not go as planned. After a few strong seasons in Seattle, the long-time backup followed Pete Carroll to the Raiders in hopes returning to his 2022 form, but, as we all know, that did not happen.

In 2025, Smith threw for 3,025 yards, 19 touchdowns and 17 interceptions while leading Vegas to the worst record in the NFL. The Raiders aren’t necessarily too mad about that, given that they now have Fernando Mendoza in the building, but they wasted no time trading Smith for a bag of chips and some printer paper, and now he’s with the New York Jets, where his career began.

Smith has a much better supporting cast in New York, with guys like Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Omar Cooper Jr. and Kenyon Sadiq around him, and his former team is set to make their way to the Big Apple at some point this year. While the Raiders have made a lot of defensive improvements, there should be opportunities for Smith to do some damage against his former team.

Can Smith get his revenge on the team that did him so little favors and then kicked him to the curb? We’ll find out later this year.

Miami Dolphins at Green Bay Packers

The Miami Dolphins are the Green Bay Packers Jr. First, they brought in Green Bay’s Vice President of Player Personnel John Eric-Sullivan, who went on to hire Green Bay’s Defensive Quarterback Jeff Hafley and backup quarterback Malik Willis. So, when the Dolphins take the trip north, it will be a revenge game for all three of those guys.

Unlike some of the others, Willis and Hafley left on good terms. I don’t think there’s any bad blood between those two and Green Bay, but they’re still going to want to win this game desperately.

The Packers were a playoff team last year and the Dolphins have probably one of the worst rosters in the league, but this team will be extra motivated to ruin Green Bay’s season, so don’t be surprised if this game is much closer than it needs to be.