The National Football League Wild Card Weekend features three games that are rematches from Week 17 action. The New York Jets earned a playoff berth with a win over the Cincinnati Bengals at the Meadowlands on Sunday night, and now travel to Paul Brown Stadium for a second straight game against Cincinnati to open Wild Card Weekend on Saturday. The Dallas Cowboys dropped the Philadelphia Eagles from a second seed and opening postseason week bye to the sixth seed in the NFC with a 24-0 win at Cowboys Stadium last weekend, and host their longtime NFC East rivals again this Saturday night.

On Sunday, the early game finds the New England Patriots at home against the Baltimore Ravens. While these two teams did not play in Week 17, they did meet earlier this year in Foxborough with Tom Brady and his Patriots edging Joe Flacco and his Ravens, 27-21, on October 4. The final of the four games played this weekend has the Green Bay Packers returning to University of Phoenix Stadium to battle the defending NFC Champion Arizona Cardinals. Last Sunday, on the same field, Green Bay defeated Arizona, 33-7.

Nine previous Wild Card Games have found teams meeting that ended the regular season playing each other, and in those games the team that won the final week contest is 4-5 in the Wild Card rematch. Or, in other words, something a lot more significant than a simple revenge for losing or dominance established by winning is in play to determine the rematch winners.

Sometimes, a team will lose the last game of the regular season because it is meaningless to them and the team that wins Week 17 finds a different level of enthusiasm from their opponent in the rematch. In fact, the only game between the three Wild Card rematches that held real significance for both teams last Sunday was the battle in Texas where the Cowboys recorded their first ever back-to-back shutout win.

Last week’s game against the Eagles was big for Dallas, the Cowboys moved from a Wild Card spot to the NFC East Division title and a home game this Saturday. The game was also significant for the Eagles, who surrendered the top spot in the NFC East, an opening week postseason bye, and home field advantage for the not only this week but next week’s Divisional Playoff Game.

With something on the table for both teams, the Cowboys earned a decisive win. Now, back in Dallas, all the cards are on the table for both these teams … the winner advancing to next week’s action and the loser sentenced to off-season activities.

Then we have a game like the Bengals and Jets, where the Jets needed a win on Sunday to earn a postseason berth, and the Bengals needed to make sure nobody got hurt and the choice of playing the Jets for a second straight week or meeting the Houston Texans this Sunday in Cincinnati. That would have been the Bengals Wild Card opponent had they beaten the Jets on Sunday night.

Both teams got their objectives accomplished in the final game played at the Meadowlands before the Jets and Giants move into their new stadium for the 2010 season … the Bengals didn’t get anybody hurt and the opponent they wanted, the Jets, made the playoffs.

Our current most favored person in the world to antagonize has also come out front-and-center with new material to mock. New York Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan no doubt knows something about the x's and o’s of football, he comes from a football family, and he has gained the appreciation of the win starved Jets fans, but on my charts, he is a drunk bull in a china shop.

Take these postgame comments for example: “We didn’t back into the playoffs; we earned it by pinning the Colts with their first loss of the season and now beating another division winner. We have no excuses; we have the right kind of team to win this time of the year. We run the ball, stop the run, we are built to win in the playoffs.”

Hey coach, I’ve been in football even longer than you, and from my perspective and history with the league let me tell you something, no team in history more clearly backed into the playoffs than your Jets squad. If your team was a truck on a construction site, the last two weeks your ears would have been ringing by the beep, beep, beep sound to warn people that a vehicle is backing up.

Your Jets beat the Colts after they pulled their team off the field … when Indianapolis fielded the same team you beat two weeks ago this past Sunday, the Buffalo Bills beat them 30-7 in the snow. The Bengals allowed you to win for two reasons; they had little to gain by risking anything in Sunday night’s contest and they would rather host you this Saturday than the opponent they would have gotten had they beaten you last week … the Houston Texans.

Now, you come to Cincinnati with bravado?

Weren’t you the coach that said your team was, “Out of the playoffs,” after you lost at home three weeks ago against the Atlanta Falcons? Your math skills are no better than your motivational talent in getting your team in the right frame of mind to play a game. Remember your loss to the Miami Dolphins in November? Remember your postgame press conference rant when you applauded your team for playing so well because you piled up a bunch of yards even though you lost the game?

Idiot.

What did you lead your team into with that lack of acknowledging the only stat that really matters, the final score, and telling them they did good in defeat heading into your bye week? Losses in your first two games after your week off against the Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots.

Do you know what happens to teams that lose on both sides of their byes?

They don’t win playoff games.

Know what happens to coaches that over acknowledge their teams based on enthusiasm instead of intelligence?

They take their rookie quarterback on the road and get their ass handed to them.

If this were a Hollywood movie I would choreograph the final scene, after the Bengals win on Saturday, with your team backing home to New York.

Qoxhi Picks: Cincinnati Bengals (-2½) over New York Jets