There are team vs. team rivalries, coach vs. coach, player vs. player, team vs. player, coach vs. player, owner vs. player and even some rivalries that just remain in the head of one person.
In this slideshow, nothing is off limits as the NFL world (hopefully) gets ready to end this lockout nonsense and get back to the business of professional football.
Included here are both rivalries and feuds. Some are intense, while others are just insane.
This has been a fight that has lasted nearly four months, and although the issues should be resolved soon, you can't help but expect some lingering effects of the feud between NFL owners and players.
Neither side will win these negotiations, and both will have some bitterness as the league attempts to move on from this black eye.
Davis has been reportedly kept busy this spring and summer watching game tapes instead of his usual meddling into team affairs.
The lockout has kept him at bay, but it won't be long before he does or says something completely insane, possibly about stud free agents Zach Miller and Nnamdi Asomugha, who he might not be willing to give the proper money to.
With Davis, expect the unexpected, like going afterPlaxico Burressor Vince Young to add to his Raider family.
The retirement ofBrett Favrewill lessen the magnitude of this rivalry somewhat in 2011, but these two teams still have plenty of hatred towards one another.
They will face each other twice in a three-game span this season, playing at Minnesota Week 7 and then at Green Bay in Week 10. Both clubs have a bye in between the meetings.
This rivalry began in 1961 and has been ultra competitive in the 100 meetings they have had. Green Bay leads the all-time series 51-48-1.
Other than the Favre drama, the most memorable moment in recent years wasRandy Moss’ fake moon TD celebration to the Green Bay crowd in the only playoff game between the rivals, a 31-17 Vikings win on Jan. 9, 2005.
Green Bay’s finest memory was a 26-20 overtime victory in 2000, when Antonio Freeman caught the winning TD while lying on his back, catching a deflected pass that rolled on his shoulder into his hands for what some dubbed the “Improbable Bobble.”
Bengals QB Carson Palmer has told team owner Mike Brown thathe would rather retirethan play another snap for Cincinnati.
Obviously this feud will cease to exist if Brown doesn’t trade him and Palmer carries out his threat to retire.
However, a more hopeful scenario involves the 31-year-old signing on with a Bengals opponent, regaining his arm strength and lighting up his former team like he did the rest of the NFL in 2005, when he tossed 32 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions.
When the Saints travel to Minnesota in Week 15, the game is bound to have major playoff implications for both teams. But the sideshow of New Orleans safety Darren Sharper and Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe should be worth the price of admission alone.
Their ongoing Twitter war is beyond ridiculous, but it is sure to have some effect when the players meet on the field.
It started in May 2010, when Sharper indicated that Brett Favre's surgically repaired ankle had an "X" on it, and Shiancoe came to his QB's defense bycomparing Sharper with Osama bin Ladenand then writing Sharper's name on a bin Laden shooting range target.
Sharper responded angrily by saying he would bust Shiancoe under his chinstrap for America.
Although the teams played in Week 1 of the 2010 season, with Shiancoe catching four passes for 76 yards and Minnesota’s lone TD in the 14-9 loss, Sharper did not play because of a knee injury.
The Browns and Steelers have met more than any two AFC teams in the history of football. With the cities approximately 135 miles apart, the two blue-collar towns have a mutual hatred for one another.
Pittsburgh has dominated recently, running off 14 wins in 15 meetings since November 2003, but Cleveland only trails the all-time regular season series 60-56.
This year, the rivals will meet twice in the final four weeks of the season, playing at Pittsburgh on Dec. 8 and at Cleveland on New Year’s Day.
This schedule could favor improving Cleveland, considering the last time the Browns beat the Steelers was on Dec. 10, 2009, when the wind chill was minus-10, marking the coldest game in the history of the series.
Jay Cutlerhas always been a tough guy to root for, even when he's quarterbacking your favorite team. His whiny persona, un-clutch performances and ill-advised passes (42 INT in past two seasons) have given the golden-armed QB the label of underachiever in the NFL.
His stock dropped to an all-time low last January, when he was forced out of the second half of the NFC Championship Game against Green Bay with an apparent knee injury.
Fans, sportswriters and more importantly former and current NFL players called him a quitter, with two of the better quotes coming from perennial Pro Bowlers Maurice Jones-Drew and Derrick Brooks:
"All I'm sayingis that he can finish the game on a hurt knee... I played the whole season on one..."
"Hey I thinkthe urban meyer rule is effect right now... When the going gets tough...QUIT."
"HEY there isno medicine for a guy with no guts and heart"
An underrated NFL rivalry is the Falcons and Saints.
Since neither team has had a great winning tradition, not many people outside of Georgia and Louisiana have cared enough to pay attention. But both of these fanbases are rowdy, and now both of the franchises are very good and should remain that way for many years to come.
Atlanta leads the all-time series 45-39, but New Orleans has won four of the past five meetings. However, all five of these games could’ve gone either way with final score margins of four, eight, three, three and three points.
Roddy White added extra heat to the rivalry last season by responding to analyst Trent Dilfer’s prediction of the Saints winning in Atlanta last yearwith a tweet of, "No chance in hell the Aints come into the dome and win once trent dilfer."
The defending Super Bowl champions took exception to being called the "Aints" and won the Monday night thriller 17-14.
After catching 47 touchdown passes in three seasons with New England, Randy Moss was still considered one of the best wideouts in football entering the 2010 season.
Instead of helping lead the Patriots back to the playoffs, Moss’ lackluster work ethic and declining speed prompted New England to trade him to the Vikings in early October.
Minnesota waived him less than a month later, allowing the Titans to claim him. That change of scenery didn’t work either, as Moss finished the 2010 campaign with a mere 28 catches for 393 yards and five touchdowns.
What Moss will do now at age 34 is anybody’s guess. He has 153 career TD receptions and still has the size and hands to be a threat in the red zone. The question is whether or not he still wants to be a football player, which obviously only Moss can answer.
Jets vs. Dolphins has been an entertaining rivalry for years and now contains a lot more character with all the egos in New York.
The 2010 calendar year added some spark to the rivalry, starting on Jan. 30, when Jets coachRex Ryanflipped the bird to heckling Dolphins fans during an MMA event. Then longtime Dolphin and Jet basher Jason Taylor signed with New York in April.
But the real pot stirrer of last year was when New York strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi tripped Miami’s Nolan Carroll as he ran out of bounds during a kickoff on Dec. 12, a game the underdog Dolphins pulled out 10-6 on the road.
The two foes will meet again in Week 6 at New Meadowlands Stadium and then will close the 2011 regular season in Miami. Ten of the past 11 meetings have been decided by eight points or less, with the Jets holding a 6-5 win margin over this span.
Cortland Finnegan is known around the league for being a huge trash talker, while Andre Johnson is widely regarded as a class act.
On Nov. 28 last year, Johnson lost his cool, ripped off Finnegan’s helmet and started throwing haymakers like he was in an MMA bout.
Although both players were ejected from the game and fined $25,000 each, remarkably neither player received a suspension.
The division foes meet again in Week 7 at Tennessee and then in the final week of the season in Houston.
Despite wearing a neck brace due to recent surgery, Adam “Pacman” Jones still managed to get arrested again on Sunday for disorderly conduct while intoxicated.
While Jones might ultimately win this battle since he apparently wasn’t drunk and never was given a breathalyzer test, the law continues to have the upper hand in this rivalry.
His rap sheet is way too long to fit in this space, but Cincinnati.com sums up his ongoing feud with the police succinctly inthis article.
According to the news outlet, "Since entering the league as a first-round pick with the Tennessee Titans in 2005, Jones has been questioned, named or arrested in connection with at least 14 off-field incidents. Among the charges were assault, felony vandalism, disorderly conduct and public intoxication."
This was once the elite rivalry in football with both Dallas and Washington legitimate Super Bowl contenders year in and year out. But in the present day, it is a bronze medal winner in its own division.
Prior to the high-scoring (and meaningless) 33-30 Dallas win on Dec. 19 of last year, the previous four contests featured two anemic offenses. The teams scored a pathetic 74 combined points in those four games with Dallas winning 14-10, 7-6 and 17-0 before Washington ended the streak with a 13-7 win.
However, the two matchups this year (Week 3 in Dallas and Week 11 in Washington) should be close games between two improved teams, and there are still plenty of characters involved in this classic rivalry with Jerry Jones,Tony Romo, Mike Shanahan andDonovan McNabb.
Steelers linebacker James Harrison has already been fined $125,000 by the NFL for illegal hits, and afterhis commentson his blog, as reported by USA Today (published May 27, 2011), expect that number to keep rising.
According to USA Today , Harrison said, "The decision to call a penalty or impose a fine is seemingly, at least some of the time, dependent upon the uniform and the player. After my meeting this past fall with Roger Goodell, Ray Anderson and Merton Hanks and some others, who I now have absolutely no respect for (to keep it PG), I definitely believe there is no equality in their enforcement of these rules.
"These rules are targeting hard hitting players and defenses i.e. STEELERS. I guess the NFL needed a poster child for their campaign."
The Colts and Patriots play each other so much that it seems like they’re in the same division. Since 2003, they have squared off in every season for a total of 11 meetings (eight regular season, three playoffs).
New England won six straight matchups from 2001 through the 2004 playoffs, but Indy has been the stronger team recently with five victories in the past seven meetings.
The past five contests have all been nail-biters with each game decided by four points or less. They meet again this year in Week 13 in New England.
What would an NFL season be without some drama involving Donovan McNabb? Usually the six-time Pro Bowler is answering criticisms fromTerrell Owens, but now it’s his own coach who is his biggest feuding partner.
Mike Shanahan took over the head coaching job with Washington last year and was not shy about expressing his displeasure in his starting quarterback. Although McNabb had his worst season as a pro (14 TD, 15 INT) in Washington, he was still a better option than Rex Grossman, who Shanahan started ahead of McNabb in the final three games of the 2010 season.
Although it remains to be seen whether or not McNabb will be coached by Shanahan this season, this feud will not end quietly.
Eagles vs. Cowboys has been arguably the nastiest rivalry over the years, “highlighted” by the Bounty Bowls and Eagles fans cheering while a motionless Michael Irvin lay on the Veterans Stadium turf.
These days, the franchises are classier with likable head coaches Jason Garrett andAndy Reid, but the fans’ venom towards one another is still just as fierce.
Dallas leads the all-time series 56-44, including a meaningless Week 17 game last year. But in the matchup the Eagles actually tried to win in 2010, DeSean Jackson had 210 receiving yards on just four catches in a 30-27 win in Dallas on Dec. 12.
This season, the teams will meet in Week 8 in Philadelphia and then again on Christmas Eve in Dallas.
8. Rashard Mendenhall vs. United States of America
Rashard Mendenhall has emerged as one of the better rushers in the NFL, gaining 2,381 yards on the ground with 21 total touchdowns in the past two seasons.
However, many football fans will probably see him as being anti-American after hiscontroversial Twitter tweetsfollowing the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1:
“What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side...”
He followed these commentswith another tweetquestioning the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001:
“We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”
It will be interesting to see how the 24-year-old reacts to being public enemy No. 1 in opposing stadiums this season.
The Giants-Eagles rivalry took an incredible turn last year with DeSean Jackson’s “walk-off” punt return TD in New York to cap off an amazing 37-31 comeback win for Philly. The Eagles trailed 31-10 with 7:28 left in the game.
Other past moments of this bone-crunching series included Chuck Bednarik ending Frank Gifford’s season with a blind-side hit in 1960 and the “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” in 1978, when New York’s Joe Pisarcik fumbled a handoff instead of taking a knee up 17-12 with 20 seconds left in the game, which Herman Edwards scooped up and returned for the game-winning TD.
Philly has won the past six meetings in this series, scoring a whopping 150 points over the past four victories. The rivalry resumes Week 3 in Philadelphia and continues Week 11 in New Jersey.
The Bart Scott-Hines Ward feud has gone on for years now, but with Ward’s offseason DUI arrest, maybe Scott will renew his vow to kill Pittsburgh’s star wideout.
Unfortunately the Jets and Steelers don’t meet during the regular season, but they could both certainly match up in the playoffs again.
Even if Ward’s not the target, odds are pretty favorable that Scott will say something inflammatory about somebody in a few weeks’ time.
One of the more heart-breaking moments of the 2010 season was Bills wideout Steve Johnson dropping a game-winning touchdown pass against Pittsburgh in overtime on Nov. 28.
While Buffalo fans and Steelers haters throughout the country were trying to find a reason why this happened, Johnson summed it up definitivelyin a postgame tweet, blaming The Almighty for his game-losing drop:
"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."
Chad Ochocinco and his head coach Marvin Lewis have had their share of differences over the eight years they have been together, but the relationship turned nasty earlier this summer.
This time it was Lewis who started the spat bycalling his star receiver “mopey”and saying the Patriots were too smart to sign him.
Ochocinco fired back with some choice words on 790 The Zone in Atlanta, which was chronicled in this USA Today article.
Ochocinco said on The 2 Live Stews show about Lewis, “He doesn't like me, well I don't like him, either. Maybe he's doing this to help the situation out. Maybe he's trying to do this to show Mike Brown, 'I don't think I can coincide with Chad.' But da**it I can't coincide with him either, and if he really feels that way, when I see him I'm going to whup his a**."
The 33-year-old Ochocinco has one year left on his contract, but at $6.5 million, Cincinnati will probably opt to release him, and surely some other NFL team will give him a shot. Stay tuned...
From 2003 to 2008, this wasn’t a rivalry at all, as New England beat New York 11 out of 12 meetings. The only drama was the whole “Spygate” fiasco withBill Belichickand Eric Mangini.
Since then, the Jets have had the upper hand with four wins in the past six matchups, including a shocker at No. 1 seed New England in last year’s playoffs. This outcome was especially surprising considering just six weeks earlier, the Patriots whupped up on the Jets 45-3 at Gillette Stadium.
It’s impossible to tally up all the showboating and taunting from these two clubs, but what stands out are Pats’ WRWes Welker’s ill-advised “foot” jokes about Jets coach Rex Ryan before the playoff shocker and excessive celebration by New York during and after the upset win.
To be fair,Tom Bradywas also taunting the Jets sideline after throwing a TD pass in the 45-3 rout, prompting cornerback Antonio Cromartieto label Bradyan “a**hole.”
The drama continues when these clubs meet Week 5 in New England and then Week 10 in New Jersey.
This rivalry dates back to 1921, but last season marked just the second time these franchises ever met in the playoffs, the first time being in 1941. Chicago leads this all-time series 92-84-6, with the past six meetings all being decided by seven points or less.
The refreshing thing about this rivalry is that there hasn’t been a lot of off-the-field nonsense that is so common amongst division foes these days. Both clubs have highly respected head coaches in Lovie Smith and Mike McCarthy, and other than Bears QB Jay Cutler, there aren’t any notable punks on either side.
The league’s most-played rivalry continues in Week 3 at Chicago and then moves to Lambeau Field in what will be a frigid Week 16 matchup.
No rivalry is as fierce on the gridiron as Steelers-Ravens, which has clearly been the league’s best rivalry over the past 10 years or so.
In the past nine meetings, the average margin of victory has been 4.6 points per game, with five of the meetings decided by a field goal. Pittsburgh has won six of these nine matchups, including two playoff games.
Steelers WR Hines Wardsummed upthis rivalry perfectly to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette back in 2006, when the head coaches were Bill Cowher and Brian Billick.
Ward said, "The coaches hate each other, the players hate each other. There's no calling each other after the game and inviting each other out to dinner. But the feeling's mutual: They don't like us, and we don't like them. There's no need to hide it, they know it, and we know it. It's going to be one of those black and blue games."
This is precisely why Steelers-Ravens earns top billing on this list.
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