National Football Conference North Division
| Conference | National Football Conference |
|---|---|
| League | National Football League |
| Sport | American football |
| Founded | 1967 (As NFL Western Conference Central Division) |
| Teams | |
| No. of teams | 4 |
| Championships | |
| Most recent NFC North champion(s) | Green Bay Packers (15 titles) |
| Most NFC North titles | Minnesota Vikings (19 titles) |
The NFC North is a division of the National Football League (NFL)'s National Football Conference (NFC), based in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. Nicknamed the "Black & Blue Division" for the rough and tough rivalry games between the teams, it currently has four members: the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and Minnesota Vikings. The NFC North was previously known as the NFC Central from 1970 to 2001. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were previously members, from 1977, one year after they joined the league as an expansion team, until 2001 when they moved to the NFC South.
The division was created in 1967 as the Central Division of the NFL's Western Conference and existed for three seasons before the AFL–NFL merger. After the merger, it was renamed the NFC Central and retained that name until the NFL split into eight divisions in 2002. The four current division teams have been together in the same division or conference since the Vikings joined the league in 1961. The Bears, Lions and Packers have been in the same division or conference since the NFL began a conference format in 1933. Largely because the four teams have played each other at least twice a year, with the exception of the strike-shortened 1982 season, for more than half a century (more than 80 years in the case of the Bears, Lions and Packers), the entire division is considered one very large rivalry.
Based on the combined ages of its current teams, the NFC North is the oldest division in the NFL, at a combined 336 years old. The Bears are 96 years old (founded in 1919 in Decatur, Illinois; moved to Chicago in 1921), the Packers are also 96 years old (founded in 1919, but turned professional in 1921), the Lions are 88 years old (founded 1929 in Portsmouth, Ohio; moved to Detroit in 1934), and the Vikings are 56 years old (founded 1961). The division has a total of 11 Super Bowl appearances. The Packers have the most appearances in the Super Bowl with 5, the most recent happening at the conclusion of the 2010 season. The Bears and the Packers have the only Super Bowl wins of this division, a total of 5 (4 for the Packers and 1 for the Bears). Of the top 10 NFL teams with the highest winning percentage throughout its franchise history, three of them are in the NFC North (the Bears, the Packers, and the Vikings). The Lions however, have one of the lowest winning percentages in the NFL, including the only winless 16-game season in NFL history, in 2008.
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