The Green Bay Packers are no strangers to a revenge game this season.
Jordan Love won the battle against his mentor with a victory over Aaron Rodgers' Pittsburgh Steelers, while Micah Parsons' return to AT&T Stadium ended in an anticlimactic and unsatisfying tie. Another revenge game is on deck, with Jaire Alexander making his Philadelphia Eagles debut at Lambeau Field.
After a bizarre run with the Baltimore Ravens that saw Alexander only feature in two games, in part due to injury but later as a healthy scratch, they traded him to the Eagles. It's now Matt LaFleur's job to make Alexander's return to Green Bay a miserable one, and it could be the best path to finding success against Philadelphia's defense.
Packers may have no choice but to target Jaire Alexander in coverage on Monday Night Football
The Eagles also traded for slot corner Michael Carter II last week, which throws some uncertainty into who will start. However, all signs point toward Alexander getting the nod on Monday Night Football.
According to Zach Berman of The Athletic, Alexander spent time working alongside Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean with Eagles passing game coordinator Christian Parker at practice. That would seemingly indicate that Alexander is in line to start.
And Mitchell and DeJean are a major reason why LaFleur may need to plan to go after Alexander in coverage.
Mitchell is a rising star, a lockdown cornerback who can cut the field in half. He regularly shadows opponents' WR1, although it's unclear if he'll follow any Packers pass-catcher in this game. According to Pro Football Focus, quarterbacks have completed just 47.9 percent of passes in his coverage for 245 yards and zero touchdowns for an awful 63.3 rating.
DeJean, meanwhile, has developed into one of the best slot corners in football. His 80.0 PFF coverage grade ranks eighth among all cornerbacks.
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If there's a "weak link," it's on the boundary opposite Mitchell, now occupied by Alexander. And there's reason to believe the Packers can get after their former All-Pro.
For starters, Alexander hasn't played much football in recent years. Since Week 8 of last season, the veteran has played a combined 71 snaps for the Packers and Ravens. He's missed significant time due to injury and struggled when active for Baltimore.
Alexander endured a nightmare Ravens debut in Week 1, blowing a coverage against Keon Coleman late in the fourth quarter of a dramatic loss. He only featured in one more game and was a healthy scratch a week ago. The former first-round pick has an awful PFF coverage grade of 31.0, having allowed all five targets in his coverage to be completed for 116 yards, a passer rating of 118.8.
It's a small sample size, but Alexander didn't look like the same player we saw in Green Bay.
On top of that, he's in a new system with just a week of preparation. If there's a cornerback to target in this game, it's the Packers' former star. Finding success against Mitchell and DeJean will be no easy task — Jordan Love found that out the hard way in last season's wild-card round by throwing a pick to Mitchell.
But Alexander, having seen precious little game time while playing poorly enough to get traded for a seventh-round pick, might give the Packers an opening.
He'll receive nothing but love when returning to Lambeau, as he should, but when the game starts, the Packers need to make his revenge game one to forget. Don't be surprised if LaFleur's game plan features several passes heading in his former All-Pro's direction.