Villaume: Cheese Era Melting?

There is no more contentious, bitter rivalry for Minnesotans than the Vikings and the Packers. Certainly the University of Minnesota has longer standing rivalries, including the longest continuous in the NCAA Football history with Wisconsin, but it does not have same intensity. The Twins have had a few rivalries built, but hating the Yankees does not make a rivalry. Our hockey and basketball teams at the University level have some wonderful rivalries with North Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa... But they pale comparatively to Green Bay and Minnesota.

We do not like each other.

I am fortunate to have grown up following the Vikings in the late 1960s. The early 1960s were expansion years for the Vikings, and they took a few years to build a winning program. I do not remember them. I am told Green Bay was great, and won many championships and a pair of Super Bowls, but I do not care to keep that a part of my memories.

My memory's introduction to the rivalry was a stretch where Minnesota went 19-3-1 from 1968 to 1979. The Packers were patsies. We beat on them with a defense that had them switching quarterbacks like coffee filters at the office. In the 1970s alone the Packers had a dozen different quarterbacks start games. For comparison, from 1993 to 2012 Green Bay started three different QBs. I sometimes felt sorry for guys like John Hadl, David Whitehurst, Jerry Tagge, or Scott Hunter. They were bad. And we hurt them. The Vikings went to four Super Bowls in an eight year frame.

Thus I will always remember Minnesota as the stronger team.

The Packers nearly dominated in the 1980s as easily as we dominated the 1970s. Green Bay went 14-5-1 in the 80s, led mostly by Lynn Dickey and Don Majkowski. But most do not recall this as the Chicago Bears seemed to upstage the rivalry with their ultimate Super Bowl win in 1986. Jim McMahon, the Fridge, Mike Ditka, the "46" defense...

The 1990s saw a return to power for Minnesota. Minnesota won the series 12-8, the 1998 sweep with the 15-1 team being the warmest memory. Unfortunately, smack dab in the middle of our success, Green Bay went to two Super Bowls and won one in the 1996-97 seasons. And Brett Favre was the reason.

No real damage.

In the 2000s Green Bay won the head-to-head series 12-9. Favre gave way to Aaron Rodgers in 2008. While Favre went 11-6 versus the Vikings in the decade, Rodgers lost three of his first four games against the Purple. Those 2009 games where Favre wore purple for the first time against the Packers will be a memory that makes he smile when I turn ninety, god-willing. That was probably the greatest two games of the rivalry... and we won them both. With their Hall-of-Famer.

As if God came down and said you may hurt the Packers' fans feelings as much as you want in 2009.

And we did.

Of course the story sours as we enter the 2010s. Green Bay goes 9-1-1, blah, blah, blah. They somehow get to the Super Bowl and win in 2011 with their new star QB, blah, blah. Minnesota has not won in the rivalry since Adrian Peterson nearly beat them single-handedly in 2012 with Christian Ponder at the helm. There was hope for another playoff win against our hated rival, but Ponder's injury kept him out of the most important game to Vikings' fans in years.

Luckily, this decade is not quite over. Green Bay, three weeks ago, was the class of the NFL. They were undefeated, Aaron Rodgers was in his usual fight with Tom Brady/Peyton Manning for MVP, and only Carolina looked to stand in the way of possibly a second trip to a Super Bowl for Rodgers and this latest Packers' team.

But then things started to change. Nay, melt.

Aaron Rodgers had a rough game at Denver. Minnesota had just played the Broncos to a close 23-20 loss earlier that was in doubt until the end. Green Bay lost 29-10 and Rodgers finished with 77 yards passing. The Pack fell to 6-1, but were ahead of Minnesota at a surprising 5-2. It was easy to rationalize losing to a powerhouse like Denver.

The following week Green Bay faced Carolina, in Carolina. The Panthers proved tough and looked the stronger throughout the game. Rodgers helped Green Bay fight back in the end and they nearly pulled off a great comeback against a very good team. A loss dropped them to 6-2, but again it was to one of the best the NFL had to offer. Meanwhile, the Vikings continued to face non-winning teams like the Rams. They were also 6-2.

Last week Green Bay sank like a block of cheese in a pizza oven. They lost for the first time in Green Bay to the Lions in 25 years. Rodgers threw 61 passes, and was seen limping at the end of the game, Eddie Lacy, and all his extra self, watched from the sidelines. Never did the team look like they missed Jordy Nelson more than last Sunday. They fell to 6-3, and now own a three game losing streak as well as suffered an important divisional loss for potential tiebreaker sake. Minnesota, beat another .500 team and looked good doing it.

This 111th meeting has a different feeling. For the last few years Vikings fans entered this game knowing that Aaron Rodgers had too many weapons for our defense. Green Bay spread the field and picked apart our weak defensive backs. Our quarterbacks made mistakes when we had to pass to catch up.

Things are different.

Minnesota boasts an aggressive defense that hits hard and keeps points off the board, even against strong passing offenses. Adrian Peterson is revving up like the starting cars on a raceway. The only concerns of late seem to be a tight end who dropped a sure TD, and a young quarterback who will have some growing pains. Injuries could have been an issue, but Coach Mike Zimmer has found adequate replacements all over the field so far.

No, things are definitely not the same.

I fully expect Minnesota to deliver us from the hands of the green and gold. The recent stretch of badness needs to go away. The Purple need to relive times when we struck fear in them.

They are everywhere.

Please Purple, for the love of all things Minnesota, give us ammo to strengthen our battle in this, the greatest of all rivalries.

Watch it melt: Minnesota 31, Green Bay 17