Considering its frequency, The Wade Phillips Revenge Game probably should be classified as a series.

With his 10th NFL franchise, in his 41st NFL season, the Rams defensive coordinator has faced a former employer nine times in his two seasons in Los Angeles.

Saturday night’s NFC divisional playoff game at the Coliseum against Dallas, for which Phillips served as head coach from 2007 to 2010, will be the 10th.

The Rams are 6-3 in those games, including last year’s 35-30 win in Dallas.

“It’s still a revenge game for me, just like the other (nine) teams that I’ve coached for,” Phillips said on Wednesday, jokingly. “Although I can’t get any revenge against the Houston Oilers because there is no Houston Oilers anymore.”

Although there is evidence that this matchup means more to Phillips than some of his other reunions.

Like the game ball Phillips received from head coach Sean McVay after the Rams’ win in Dallas last season.

Or the package, which Phillips joked was a Christmas tree ornament emblazoned with Dallas owner Jerry Jones’ face, that arrived at the Phillips household recently.

“If you work for Jerry Jones, you’re part of the family,” Phillips said. “I keep telling him not to send us Christmas gifts, but he does. Seriously.”

Before taking his first question, Phillips opened his weekly media availability on Wednesday with a series of thoughts on his former employers.

He called Dallas head coach Jason Garrett, his former offensive coordinator, “a better head coach than I was.” He called Jones matriarch Eugenia “one of the great people in the world.” He publicly thanked Jones for flying his family to his father Bum’s funeral in 2013, calling it “a debt I’ll never repay.”

He also summed up his most memorable moments in Dallas.

“Most cherished moment was when I got the job,” Phillips said. “Least cherished was when I got fired.”

Phillips was replaced by Garrett in November 2010, following a 45-7 loss in Green Bay that resigned the reeling Cowboys to a 1-7 start.

“I worked as hard as I could there,” Phillips said. “I did the best I could and then moved on since then. It’s not about me, it’s about this game and our football team.”

This week, Garrett called his time working for Phillips “incredibly valuable.”

“I learned so much from Wade,” Garrett said. “For me, it was as much as I could just to be quiet and listen and watch and see how he handled so many different situations, very specific football situations.”

The next young offensive mind learning from the defensive master, Rams head coach Sean McVay hinted that Saturday’s game might hold a special meaning for Phillips.

"You look at the experience and the success that he had as a head coach there (in Dallas)," McVay said. "I know there’s a lot of people that mean a lot to him in that building.

“Every game means a lot, but when you have a history with an organization it might mean a little something more, just because of the people that you’re going up against. I know he wants to win this one as much as any.”

To achieve that goal, Phillips’ defense, ranked just 23rd against the run in the NFL, will have to find a way to contain Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott, the league’s leading rusher.

Phillips doesn’t think the matchup is as one-sided as advertised.

“I know everybody says ‘Well, he’s a great back and you’ve got a bad run defense,’ but there’s a lot of games that we’ve played this year that they were supposed to have a good running game and we shut them down,” Phillips said. “It’s a big challenge to stop their running game, especially him. But all our guys know that ... We’ve challenged our guys. We can’t let him run wild on us.”

The Rams defense might not have lived up to the hype it generated in the offseason, when the team added name playmakers like defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters.

But Phillips pointed to his defense’s league-high 58 takeaways over the past two seasons as a reason not to discount it come the postseason.

“Like I said all along, I think our defense has played really well in key situations, pressure situations,” Phillips said. “Enough to win games. That’s the most important thing.”

Follow the Ventura County Star's Joe Curley on Twitter @vcsjoecurley.

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