The Poppa of Them All

Recently, Sports Illustrated ran an article ranking the top ten rivalries in the NFL. For some reason, they decided to name the Bears-Packers, the original Midwest pro sports rivalry, second to the Redskins and Cowboys (no, I’m not giving you a link. This would only encourage the trend of spouting off idiotic opinions to generate publicity and get more traffic on a website, higher ratings for a program, etc. In an unrelated story, stay tuned for Sexley’s article next week where he illustrates how Quentin Tarantino is the most important American of the last thirty years.) I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering how both the Bears and Packers play thousands of miles from the ocean, and they did a nice job with the rest of the list, but it did make me wonder how somebody could be so stupid and poorly informed. In an attempt to better understand this, I’m going to compare the two rivalries and determine, once and for all, which is the greatest rivalry in the NFL.

HISTORY/TRADITION/LONGEVITY:

No contest here. Although the Redskins and Cowboys have been going at it for forty years, which is an impressive run, the Bears and Packers rivalry started back in 1921, when the George Halas had upside, Bears were called the Staleys, and it actually kind of made sense to have an NFL team in Green Bay. By the way, this rivalry actually predates the NFL by a year, the first game was played in something called the APFA. It also includes the only two remaining original NFL teams, which by itself would create a rivalry of some kind. (Also, a true NFL historian could probably make the case that the Bears have a longer standing rivalry with the Redskins than the Cowboys do).

Edge: BEARS

PROXIMITY:

While Washington and Dallas are separated by half of a continent, Chicagoans have the unfortunate pleasure of being right next to Wisconsin. Also, there are numerous Packers fans in the Chicago area. The main reason for this is that many people from Wisconsin move south after deciding that they don’t want to work at a dairy farm, brewery, toilet paper factory (Green Bay’s #1 industry, I could probably have made that up but I didn’t), or gas station. I also suspect that some of these people were once weak-minded Bears fans who bandwagon jumped during Brett Favre’s peak. Well, all of you are most definitely NOT welcome back. Also, be advised that the Patriots, Colts, Bengals, Steelers, Eagles, Giants, Redskins, Chiefs, Chargers, and Seahawks don’t really want your kind either. Oh, and there are a fair number of Bears fans in Wisconsin also.

Edge: BEARS

LEVEL OF HATRED:

This is the first truly tough call here. When hired as head coach of the Bears, Lovie Smith stated that his main goal was to beat the Packers, and while I appreciate him turning the team around as well, I think most fans would agree. Chicago radio personality Harry Tinowitz, who would hardly be considered a shock jock, asked one caller earlier this week if he was looking forward to getting a dildo for Christmas upon learning that the caller was a Packers fan. When his co-hosts called him on this, he responded with something along the lines of, “that’s what every Packers fan wants to get.” The scary thing is I think a lot of people in Chicago were nodding in agreement. On the other hand, my manager at work is a Cowboys fan and he looked positively sick after each loss to the ‘Skins this year, and even a cursory search of the web reveals much anti-Cowboys propaganda being produced by Redskins fans.

Edge: EVEN

BALANCE:

As much as I would like to claim that the Bears are superior to the Packers in every way, I have to admit that this is a perfect example of a balanced rivalry over the years. The Packers can point to having more championships and their recent run of dominance with Favre, while the Bears can point to the fact that they are still leading the all-time series (which, by the way, every Bears and Packers fan cares about), they have had more Hall of Famers, and the majority of their fans are employed. On the other hand, the Cowboys have a substantial edge in the head-to-head series with Washington, however, they have lost both playoff games against the Redskins, and the teams each have five championships, although Washington had two before the Cowboys existed, which just tips this one in the Cowboys favor.

Edge: BEARS

SIGNIFICANCE:

Both teams are in the same division and frequently run across situations where there is only room for one of the two to make the playoffs. It doesn’t really get much more important than a divisional game in the NFL.

Edge: EVEN

EXCELLENCE:

If you define excellence as “being consistently overhyped, year after year, for no apparent reason,” then the Redskins and Cowboys would be impossible to beat, assuming that the Lions and Saints don’t have a burgeoning rivalry budding. If you define excellence in a rivalry as “winning over 30% of the league’s championships between two teams,” then you have to go with the Bears and Packers. By the way, don’t sell me that load of horse crap about how nothing counts before the Super Bowl era. There were probably more substantial rule changes in the NFL last year than there were in the year of the merger, so the game was essentially the same before that, although there have obviously been improvements in strategy, equipment, and training if not the quality of play. I know what you’re thinking: “Ek, what about all that talent that was in the AFL all those years?” Did you know that the AFL was around for THREE years before the first Super Bowl (which, FYI, was actually not the year of the merger, they went for four more years before “interleague play” was added to the season)? Also, the NFL has had more competing leagues over the last ten years then at any other point in its history, and while probably none of them are quite what the AFL was, many of them have produced multiple players who were able to compete at the NFL level. I also don’t buy the argument that the league being smaller at that point lessens the value of a title. Although it makes sense mathematically, there’s so much evidence that expansion hurts the quality of play that I don’t put too much stock in that idea.

Edge: BEARS

MEMORABLE GAMES:

Considering how many times the Bears and Packers have played, there have been surprisingly few games that would really stand out to a non-Bears, non-Packers NFL fan. The main problem is that they’ve rarely been good or bad at the same time for the last twenty years. The Redskins and ‘Boys have had a few more, so I have no problem giving them this one.

Edge: REDSKINS/COWBOYS

EVIL OWNERS/FRONT OFFICE TYPES:

In any good rivalry it’s absolutely essential to be able to hate the owner of the other team. This is one of the weaknesses of the Bears/Packers rivalry – the Packers are owned by the fans, which I actually kind of think is cool. While I dislike the Packers fans, it’s completely different from the way I would dislike some rich guy who gave horrible contracts to two big-name players each offseason and threatened to move the Packers to Canada every five years (ok, actually that sounds kind of enjoyable). George Halas would have been tough for opposing fans to dislike because of everything he did for professional football, although he was in some ways the George Steinbrenner of his day also. Mike McCaskey is mostly known for being cheap, but he’s not so cheap that it consistently kills the team and you can justify hating him for it. Meanwhile, the Cowboys have an established Evil Sports Owner, and Daniel Snyder would be there if the Redskins could just be consistently good or bad rather than being so mediocre every year.

Edge: REDSKINS/COWBOYS


BELOVED/HATED COACHES:

Yes, I know that Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells are the two greatest coaches of all-time. Just kidding. Actually it’s George Halas and Vince Lombardi.

EDGE: BEARS


BELOVED/HATED PLAYERS:

For the current NFL fan, the first player that comes to mind in the Bears/Packers rivalry is John Madden’s favorite, perhaps followed by Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown. All three have had memorable performances in those rivalry games. The Redskins and Cowboys don’t really have a slew of truly memorable players at the moment, although Santana Moss may be carving himself a place here. If you go back a ways, the Cowboys had a lot of great personalities in the 90s, but the Bears had crazier ones in the 80s, and then you have to get into the sheer volume of all-time greats that have played in the original NFL rivalry.

EDGE: BEARS (you didn’t really expect me to type “PACKERS” in any of these, do you?)

Final Score: BEARS 6, REDSKINS/COWBOYS 2

I am awesome and SI blows.