Packers have the advantage in their rivalry with the Vikings, but Minnesota has its share of victories

In SB Nation this week is rivalry week. Here at Acme Packing Company, we’re going to investigate Green Bay Packers‘greatest historical rivalries and those against their current rivals. Today we start with a look at the team’s “newest” rival, the Minnesota Vikings.

In almost every show of something that resembles a real rivalry game, the color commentator will like a remark saying “These teams just don’t like each other”. And even if the Minnesota Vikings are relatively young compared to the other rivals of the Green Bay Packers, the Packers don’t seem to like them as much as the Bears or Lions – if not more.

Since joining the NFL in 1960, the Vikings have caused all sorts of problems for the Packers. Whether it was Bud Grant who harassed Vince Lombardi’s teams in the 1960s, the house of horror that was the Metrodome in the 1990s, or the obsession of current Viking fans, Anthony Barr’s hit on Aaron Rodgers in 2017 to repeat, there was a lot of bad work to do when these two teams came together.

Entire series history

Regular season: Packers lead 61-53-2
Postseason: Draw 1-1
Longest strand: Vikings W7, 1975-78

1960s: Vikings let packers work for early victories

The Vikings played the Packers pretty hard at the beginning of their shared history. Although the Packers took the decade (they won 11 out of 18 meetings), the Vikings certainly didn’t make it easy for them. Two of the Packers ‘victories were five points or less, and of the Vikings’ seven victories, the Packers only broke 20 points once when Bud Grant and his strong defense captured Lombardi and Company. In fact, the Vikings gave the Packers one of only two losses during their march to Super Bowl I, a 20-17 exchange party, where the Vikings gathered at Lambeau Field on a 31-degree day to add 10 points in the fourth quarter collect.

1970s: The Viking flood mark corresponds to the “bloody years” of the packers.

You may not have heard it, but the 1970s weren’t exactly kind to the Packers. Vince Lombardi was gone, as were most of the big names of his time. Bart Starr stayed here for a few seasons, but was an envelope in itself. He returned as head coach, but didn’t fare much better. All in all, the 70s were a bad time to be a Packers fan.

The Vikings performed every four times in the Super Bowl in the 1970s. They would lose all four, but they seem to have removed their fear of the Packers. In 20 meetings, the Packers won only four times and could only break 20 points twice.

Playing the Vikings was a team-wide exercise in vain, and there was no better representation of that vain than Terdell Middleton’s 39 carry, 110 yard, a touchdown feat for the Packers against the Vikings in 1978. Despite Middleton’s heroic defeat by the Vikings Defense, the best thing the Packers could do was a 10: 10 tie.

1980s: Packers dominate the back-end of the Bud Grant era

After a downturn in the 1970s, the Packers roared back in the 80s, at least in terms of their rivalry with the Vikings. The Packers were 14: 5 against their purple counterparts in the 1980s, including seasonal sweeps in 1980, 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988. This decade has also seen some of the most one-sided games in Packers history / Vikings. The Vikings gave the Packers losses of 42-7 and 32-6, while the Packers responded with victories of 45-17, 38-14 and 34-14. The Packers’ 45-17 win is particularly noteworthy as it was tied at 17 at one point in the third quarter before breaking out into defeat.

1990s: The decade belongs to the Packers, but the Vikings take up the rivalry

The Vikings won 12 of their 20 Packers games in the 1990s for two simple reasons: the Metrodome and Randy Moss.

For starters, the Packers just couldn’t win in Minnesota even in the mid-1990s. Mike Holmgren won his first Metrodome win in 1997, and the Packers won there only twice in the decade.

Randy Moss’ arrival in 1998 didn’t make things easier. Moss announced his first appearance in the rivalry with a five-catch, 190-yard, and two-touchdown performance, the first of many times he had tortured the Packers.

2000s: big moments and bad blood

The first decade of the new millennium showed some of the greatest moments of rivalry between packers and Vikings. And if it hadn’t been one of the most notable problems in football history, the very first game between these two teams after the second year would have been the most exciting. In a wet, sloppy overtime competition during the 2000 season, Antonio Freeman’s “he did what” catch gave the Packers a legendary 26:20 win over the Vikings, and somewhere Chris Dishman is still wondering exactly what happened in that game.

The Packers occupied the middle of the decade in the regular season, including a pair of 34-31 last-second wins during the regular season in 2004. However, the Vikings also gave the Packers a significant loss. In the wild card round of the 2003 playoffs, the Vikings rolled the Packers on Lambeau Field. Randy Moss scored two touchdowns in the 31-17 whip, which wasn’t nearly as close as it looks on paper, and underscored his second score with what Joe Buck would describe as a “disgusting act”: Faux Mooning the Lambeau Field amount.

Brett Favre defined the late part of the decade on both sides of the rivalry. When Favre made his last visit to the Metrodome in 2007 as a Packers member, he broke Dan Marino’s record for career touchdowns with a 16-yard strike on Greg Jennings.

After Favre’s first retirement, he retired and spent the 2008 season on the jets. While he was there, Aaron Rodgers won his first start for the Packers, a 24:19 victory over the Vikings to open the 2008 season. The Vikings won the second matchup against the Packers in 2008 and, thanks to a failure by Mason Crosby on a 52-yard field goal, barely achieved a 28:27 win after the period ran out.

Then there was still 2009.

Brett Favre ended up in his favorite post-packers environment, winning both games against his former team, including a 38:26 win at Lambeau Field.

2010: Packers avenge Favre in purple, playoff loss in a strange decade

If the 2000s were the culmination of this rivalry, the 2010s were its strange encore.

The decade includes two draws, the most one-sided game in rivalry history (a 45-7 win for the Packers in 2011), a Vikings win (16-0 in 2017), Joe Webb, who starts a playoff game , and much more.

The Packers opened the decade as well as they hoped and avenged their losses to Favre with two wins, including a 31-3 game that almost ended Brad Childress’s time as Viking head coach. The Packers largely dominated the rivalry until 2014, with only a last-second loss in 2012 and a draw in 2013 (excluding Aaron Rodgers) hurt their record.

The early dominance of Packers in this decade also included the pictorial and literal demolition of the Metrodome. On their last visit, before the dome for the bird-killing sand crawler was torn down at US Bank Stadium, the Packers smoked Vikings 44-31 and scored points on every trip except for one that started with four seconds in the first half and one others ended the game.

However, the fate of the Vikings has changed somewhat since the last week of the 2015 regular season. They won the de facto NFC North title game in week 17 of this year and defeated the Packers 20-13 at Lambeau Field. After this game and the first matchup of the 2015 season, the Packers are only 4: 5: 1 against the Vikings in the last half of the decade.

This includes three defeats in the new Viking stadium, one of which included the infamous Barr / Rodgers hit. The partial landing from Barr to Rodgers led to a change in the “body weight rule” that played a key role in the Packers’ bond with the Vikings in 2018. Clay Matthews landed on Kirk Cousins ​​and was tagged, which should have destroyed a game seal. Intercepting Jaire Alexander.

The Packers recovered in 2019, winning both games against the Vikings, including an NFC north win in week 16.

Looking into the 2020s

Both the Packers and the Vikings have made significant changes to the future this off-season. The Packers designed the potential successor to Aaron Rodgers in the first round of this spring and chose Jordan Love, who will hopefully lead the Packers to an even bigger lead in the series standings. The Vikings, meanwhile, have implemented much of their defense, which has kept upsetting the Packers under head coach Mike Zimmer.

Even if it turns out that the biggest names are different, one thing is certain: there is no reason to believe that these teams will love each other soon.