The Great Gumbo Beef of 2018 will not seep into 2019.
Much has been made this week of Los Angeles Rams cornerback Marcus Peters' comments made in the direction of New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton following L.A.'s loss to New Orleans in Week 9, when Peters was exposed by Michael Thomas time and time again.
After Payton acknowledged in his postgame presser that the Saints liked Thomas' matchup on Peters "a lot," Peters unleashed a delicious comeback.
"Tell Sean Payton, keep talking that s---, we gonna see him soon. You feel me? Yeah," Peters said at the time. "Cause I like what he was saying on the sideline too. Tell him he can keep talking that s---. And I hope he sees me soon. You feel me? Then we're gonna have a good little, nice little bowl of gumbo together."
Fast forward two-plus months, and the Rams are returning to the scene of the crime with a Super Bowl appearance on the line. Peters reignited the broth brawl this weekend when he tweeted and quickly deleted a post that read, "It's gumbo week."
But meeting with the media on Wednesday, Peters wanted to move past his last performance in New Orleans and his barbs with Payton.
"Throughout all the other stuff that was behind it, me personally, I didn't have an excellent game that game," Peters told reporters. "So you look forward to those rematches.
"Like I said, man, I've got the utmost respect for the Saints and their head coach and organization, you know. But things like that, I'm going to be ready to play just as much as they're going to be ready to play. We're trying to play a game. We ain't trying to talk about no gumbo. We can talk about all that stuff afterwards."
Down in New Orleans, Payton had similarly fine things to say about the pro-puree Peters.
"We came close to drafting him the year we took Andrus [Peat]," Payton said. "One of our goals going into that draft was Peat and Peters, and that's the truth. So, I have great respect for him, and it's all good."
"I think it was all in good fun," Rams coach Sean McVay added. "I think there's a competitiveness that exists. There's a lot of dialogue that goes back and forth where when you have relationships or you have history with people -- I think Marcus was having fun with it and I know that he has a whole lot of respect for coach Payton and the Saints."
This consternation over consommé has clouded the fact that Peters' anger stemmed from how repeatedly he was victimized in these teams' first meeting. The corner allowed seven receptions on nine targets for 146 yards, six first downs and the game-clinching touchdown in Los Angeles' loss.
That is clearly what is on Peters' mind heading into the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. The rest was just a playful war of words, from soup to nuts.
