Revenge games are always fun, especially because they seem to bring out the best in the headlining player. Everyone will be tuning in to watch Sam Darnold play against the visiting New York Jets in Week 1, and to see Tom Brady return to Gillette Stadium in Week 4, and to watch J.J. Watt and DeAndre Hopkins go up against the Houston Texans in Week 7 — so long as Hopkins plays in 2021 amid vaccine-related controversy.
But another revenge game likely won't make as much of a national headline. The contest in question? When the Philadelphia Eagles head to Ford Field to take on the Detroit Lions, allowing star cornerback Darius Slay to play against his old team with which he spent seven seasons. The drama, however, won't be there quite as much. The quarterback he'll be attempting to pick off won't be longtime teammate Matthew Stafford. New defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn isn't someone he played under in his career. And, most importantly, head coach Dan Campbell isn't the same head coach that had more than his fair share of spats with Slay: the one and only Matt Patricia. So will Slay even be excited to play against his former team?
"Nah, not anymore," he said in a press conference. "If Patricia was there, I'd be very excited."
There's a whole lot of history between the two, and it's not exactly private information. As Slay revealed last March in an interview with the Free Press, a 2018 incident really derailed their relationship.
"He told me in front of the whole team, in the team meeting room, showed clips of me in practice getting a ball caught on me," Slay said. "I posted a picture (of a wide receiver on social media), and he told me, stop sucking this man’s private. So I’m like, 'Whoa.' I’m like, 'Hold up.' Where I’m from, that don’t fly. Cause I wouldn’t say that to him. I wouldn’t say to him to stop you-know-what to Bill Belichick. I wouldn’t do that. That’s just not me as a man. That’s disrespectful to me and so from there on it was done with."
Slay had also had a run-in with Patricia after he had spent time working out with Richard Sherman, Aqib Talib and Xavier Rhodes.
“He told me, out of his mouth, he said, 'Those are elite guys. You’re not elite. You’re a good player, but they are elite. And Sherman’s smart. He used you,'" Slay recalled. "He tried to say Sherm used me to know what Marvin Jones do. I said, 'He can find out what Marvin Jones do watching film. That ain’t got nothing to do with me.' What am I going to tell him? I don’t know the offense. I know route combinations, (but) I ain't going to know the offense."
And there's probably more where that came from, so it's understandable that Slay doesn't hold the same grudge against the Lions as much as he holds a grudge against his former head coach. The same thing can likely be said for Eagles offensive players Travis Fulgham and Kerryon Johnson.
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