During the 2009 season opener, NBC's Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth fawned romantically during the Packers-Bears contest about the National Football League's "most storied rivalry." They gushed at length about the legendary history between the two teams, who have been playing each other since the NFL's inception.

With all due respect to the Curly Lambeau and George Halas, move over, Chicago Bears.

While Packers-Bears will always rekindle nostalgic feelings and a "David vs. Goliath" attitude among the Fox Valley denizens, it's become nothing more than an annual battle for bragging rights. Quick, when was the last time the two teams battled for anything even remotely related to a playoff berth or championship? When's the last time a star player "jumped ship" from one team to another? When's the last time one of these games went down to the wire?

Nope, the Chicago Bears don't even come close. The Packers' true rival, who will come as shock to nobody, lies about 278 miles west -- if using Wisconsin 29 and I-94 -- in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Yes, those purple-clad goons from the Teflon-covered stadium.

The Green Bay-Minnesota rivalry has been brewing for years, long before Ryan Longwell and Brett Favre crossed the St. Croix River. The two teams have met 96 times since the Vikings joined the league as an expansion team in 1961 and the Packers hold a slight edge (49-46-1).

In the last 23 meetings, the Packers have outscored Minnesota by just three points (541-538) and have averaged 23.4 points to the Vikings' 23.2.

Of course, with Favre now slinging passes to the guys in purple, the animosity and intensity has been taken up another notch.

Earlier this week, former Packers safety LeRoy Butler discussed the rivalry -- and the Brett Favre factor -- with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Greg A. Bedard.

Butler, never one to mince words during his Green Bay career, didn't pull any punches this time, either.

"When you switch to the Vikings, that's the one team you hate and hate's a strong word," Butler told the paper. "That's the one thing you dislike. You enjoy beating the Bears, it's a great rivalry. But when you play the Vikings -- Hatfield and McCoys -- that's how it is. All the rules go out. You have to beat them. It's a must-win game. You can live with splitting with Chicago. You can't live and you can't sleep losing to the Vikings."

The early years

From the get-go, the Packers made mincemeat of their new neighbors. The Lombardi-led Packers handed the Vikings a 33-7 loss in the teams' first meeting (Oct. 22, 1961) and would win five more before suffering a 24-23 loss in 1964. The Packers would go 11-3 against the Vikings during the Lombardi era and took the inaugural NFC Central title in 1967.

When Lombardi stepped aside after the 1967 season and Super Bowl II, the pendulum shifted to Minnesota thanks to the first of many Wisconsin connections for the franchise. Superior native Bud Grant was named head coach in 1967, succeeding Norm Van Brocklin.

Grant would lead the Vikings to a 9-7 victory over Green Bay in his first meeting against his home-state team and he'd go 22-12-1 over the next 15 years.

In all, his teams win 11 of the next 13 seasons (only Green Bay in '72 and Tampa Bay in '79 would break that string) and went to the Super Bowl five times while the Packers faded from prominence.

The Vikings made the playoffs five times in the '80s while the Packers were largely forgettable, as the Walter Payton-led Bears steamrolled the division. That era is largely considered the height of hatred between the Packers and Bears, but it was the Vikings that killed any hope of a playoff berth during the memorable '89 season when Minnesota beat Cincinnati in the season finale to win the division and advance to the playoffs. Page 1 of 3 (view all on one page)

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