Athletes tend to play it cool upon getting the opportunity for payback. They spew sentences filled with unemotional words such as ''business'' and ''professionalism'' and behave as if any desire for a little ''take that'' can't dovetail with the goal of team victory.
Take Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington. In one August flurry of activity, the only team Pennington had known in his eight previous seasons, the Jets, had traded for Brett Favre and jettisoned him. Now, by leading the Dolphins to a victory Sunday, Pennington could finish a season in which he has statistically outplayed Favre by helping the Dolphins into the playoffs over the Jets' dead carcass.
But Pennington plays off any idea of revenge, saying the emotions swirled more before the season opener, a month after the Jets jilted him for Favre.
''You've got to think about it, you've got to assess the situation,'' Pennington said. ``You've got to realize and hopefully learn from your past experiences that you may have had. That's why I think the first game has helped me because there were a lot of emotions in that game. It was so fresh, it was so new. It was a different situation.''
