Packers, Vikings rivalry gets under way

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The NFC North is exactly what the NFL had in mind when it backloaded the schedule with division games.

The top three teams — the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings — are all still very much alive in the playoff hunt. Better yet, with only two games separating the teams and four games left between them, no one is anywhere close to clinching the division title.

“They count as double,” Vikings running back Adrian Peterson said. “Everyone is a game ahead or a game behind, so each game is going to be very important.”

A win one week, and a team could be on top the division. A loss the next, and they’re scrambling for the wild card. What’s not to love about that?

“That’s why they structure it like that,” Packers defensive lineman Ryan Pickett said. “It’s like we’re in the playoffs right now.”

Not that the NFC North needed any help making its matchups more riveting.

The NFC North rivalries have never been what you’d describe as friendly. But the teams are too close in proximity and have too much history to be just another week on the schedule.

“It’s the Vikings,” Pickett said of Green Bay’s game this Sunday. “And we don’t like the Vikings.”

Add playoff implications into the mix, and the fiery rivalries could become downright combustible.

“I asked them this exact question: ‘Do I have to give a motivational speech to get us ready for THIS game?” said Vikings coach Leslie Frazier, who counts as something of an expert, having spent his playing career with the Bears.

“When you’re playing a divisional rival, those guys understand the implications and what has to get done. At this level, if you can’t get excited about this opportunity, you’re in the wrong business.”

Particularly with so much at stake.

The Packers (7-4) are a game in front of the Vikings (6-5). They play twice in the final five weeks of the season, Sunday in Green Bay and the Dec. 30 season finale in Minneapolis. Both teams also have a game left against the Bears, who lost to Green Bay in September and beat Minnesota last week.

Do the math, and the division standings could be turned upside-down every week from here on out. So, too, the wild-card race, where Green Bay leads and Minnesota is locked in a tie with Seattle and Tampa Bay.

Green Bay has won its last nine games against its NFC North brethren, a franchise-record streak that dates back to December 2010. You have to go back another year for the Packers’ last division loss at Lambeau Field, where they have won 23 of their last 25 regular-season games.

The last NFC North team that won in Green Bay? None other than the Vikings.

“We need to get this Green Bay win,” Frazier said. “It’s important for us and it’s no different for them. They need it as much as we do.”

The status of Vikings multi-threat receiver Percy Harvin is doubtful with an ankle injury. But Peterson has put up some big numbers against the Packers, and Green Bay will be without defensive end C.J. Wilson, a cornerstone of the run defense.

The Packers’ offense, meanwhile, is trying to figure out how to rebound from last weekend’s 38-10 beatdown by the New York Giants that was even more lopsided than the score indicated. Aaron Rodgers was sacked five times, giving him an NFL-worst 37 sacks. That’s one more than he had all of last season.

But the Packers should get a boost from the return of No. 1 receiver Greg Jennings, who expects to play Sunday after missing the last seven games with a torn abdominal muscle.

AP prediction: PACKERS, 24-17

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