Why we hate every NFC North team
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A Detroit Lions fan before a game against the Vikings at Ford Field in January. Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
The NFC North is among the NFL's best divisions, with all four teams expected to compete for a playoff spot.
Why it matters: Decades of football history are baked into the collection of teams that one ESPN sportscaster affectionately calls the "NFC Norris."
- All that history has resulted in bitter division rivalries that border on pure hatred (in a sports sense, at least).
State of play: With reporters and editors spread across the country, Axios checked in with diehard fans of each team for an inaugural Haters' Guide to the NFC North. Enjoy!

🛡️ Five reasons to hate the Vikings
Axios Detroit's Joe Guillen here. Back for more, Vikings' fans? Another year of heartbreak, disappointing quarterback play and looking up at the Lions in the standings?
Five reasons why I hate the Minnesota Vikings:
1. You're lucky, not good: Hopefully the Vikings lose more close games this season to avoid weeks of pointless discussions about whether they're "for real." We all know the answer.
2. That horn sound: Second only to "Go Pack Go" as the most annoying in-game sound effect in the division. I can hear it in my head. I hate it.
3. J.J. McCarthy: He projects a calm, Zen-like personality for the cameras. As a Michigan State fan, I know the real McCarthy. He's turnover-prone and panicky.
4. Justin Jefferson: He's great, I'm not disputing that. I just hate how he steals some shine from the division's best receiver, bar none: Amon-ra St. Brown.
5. Skol Chant: Unable to come up with your own tradition, you Vikings fans hilariously ripped off the Iceland national soccer team to come up with this clap-and-chant abomination. Do you wear team scarves, too?

🐻 Five reasons to hate the Chicago Bears
Axios Twin Cities' Nick Halter here. Chicago sports fans are once again telling everyone this is the year they turn it around with a young quarterback.
- It's like a Bill Murray movie, only every day is late August, not Feb. 2.
Five reasons why I hate the Chicago Bears:
1. Your city had Michael Jordan, the 2010s Blackhawks dynasty and the 2016 Cubs. But all you want to talk about is the 1985 Bears, even though most of you don't remember that team because you weren't old enough or you were too drunk on Malört.
2. Ben Johnson seems like a brilliant offensive mind. He also seems like a very awkward man.
3. Caleb Williams reportedly wanted to be a Viking because Chicago is, according to Caleb's father, "where quarterbacks go to die." The Vikings almost proved him right during one Monday Night Football game last year.
4. Jay Cutler is the winningest quarterback in franchise history. Cheering for Smokin' Jay is worse than cheering for Kirk Cousins.
5. We don't actually hate the Bears in Minnesota. You're the enemy of our cheesy enemy, which makes you a friend. Keep beating the Packers — like last year — and we'll be good.

🧀 Five reasons to hate the Green Bay Packers
Axios Chicago's Justin Kaufmann here. There are two constants in Chicago: We don't put ketchup on hot dogs and we hate the Packers.
To be honest: I don't dislike the current Packers squad. Jordan Love is a good quarterback, and I've always been a Josh Jacobs fan.
- They released loudmouth Jaire Alexander, so even better.
Yes, but: In Chicago, there is a storied history of Packers hate that is passed on from generation to generation.
Five reasons why I hate the Green Bay Packers:
1. Bad blood: Chicago loves deep-dish pizza, but it loves Walter Payton and the 1985 Bears more. So when the Packers couldn't beat them, they played dirty, including maybe the dirtiest play in NFL history. Never forget.
2. Proximity: The rivalry between Wisconsin and Chicago is a little lopsided. They don't like the way we drive and think we're rude at restaurants.
- Reality check: Chicagoans are mostly agnostic. We're more like Don Draper from "Mad Men."
3. Your fans: We Bears fans don't care for the cheese-head hats, hunting pants and their love of Todd Rundgren.
- We get it, you paid $25 to "own" the team, so you wave it around like you are a successful businessperson. In reality, the only business you do is carving out a hole in the ice while drinking Hamm's out of the back of your pickup truck.
4. The Packers are soft. Green Bay is a skilled team that knows how to win, but rarely shows toughness in doing so. Recent playoff embarrassments seem to illustrate that point.
5. The hairstyles. Fans love their long-haired blonde linebackers. Nobody else likes that look.
- Nobody.

🦁 Five reasons to hate the Detroit Lions
Axios editor Geoff Ziezulewicz here. As you may have gathered, we NFC North dwellers generally target the majority of our contempt toward the Packers, but this Vikings diehard has plenty of haterade left in the tank for the Detroit Lions.
Five reasons why I hate the Detroit Lions:
1. Stacked roster, little to show for it: Few things are sadder than wasted potential, but few things are funnier than when an anointed team craps the bed.
- Those scrappy Washington Commanders took the Lions' lunch and promptly ate it right in their faces, resulting in a brutal 45-31 drubbing in January. My smug contempt for the Lions as mane-loving poseurs only grew after that loss.
2. Dan Campbell's crying: It's 2025, and it's OK for men to cry. On occasion ... when crying is warranted.
- But you can set your watch to Campbell's post-game weepage. It's been as inevitable as the falling autumn leaves. If you're gonna cry about anything, cry about your franchise squandering Calvin Johnson's career.
3. You owned us last January: The Vikes had a really nice thing cooking nearing the end of last season's campaign. The 31-9 loss to Detroit hurt, but at least it helped us begin to realize that Sam Darnold was not our long-term answer.
4. The casual loserdom: Props to the Lions for continuing to field a team after going Oh-fer in 2008.
- The ignominious season was capped against the Vikings, when Lions QB Dan Orlovsky ran out of bounds in the end zone and nabbed himself a nice lil' safety. To quote Nelson Muntz: "Ha ha!"
5. Your name: Despite my pooh-poohing, Detroit remains a mighty U.S. city. Its history lies at the heart of the American combustion engine and our collective automotive lineage. So why not honor that in the name? Instead, you're the … Lions. Rawr. I guess.

