How Many Times Have the Green Bay Packers Won the NFC North?
The Green Bay Packers are in for a new look in 2023. Gone is four-time MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The Packers traded Rodgers to the New York Jets this season, one year after they shipped off Davante Adams, arguably the best wide receiver in the game, to the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Packers have owned the NFC North in recent years but saw their string of three straight division titles come to a halt in 2022. The Minnesota Vikings took control of the North, while the Packers failed to make the playoffs. With Jordan Love taking over at quarterback and Green Bay’s division rivals improving, it may be a while before the Pack returns to the top of the NFC North.
The Minnesota Vikings put an end to the NFC North title runs by the Green Bay Packers in 2022
With Rodgers under center as a full-time starter since 2008, the Packers won just one Super Bowl. It’s disappointing to Packers fans, especially when Green Bay reached the conference championship five times and went 1-4 during that stretch.
Rodgers won the NFC North an incredible nine times with the Packers. That includes a string of four seasons in a row, from 2011-2014, and his first three seasons under head coach Matt LaFleur from 2019-2021. Those division crowns were never lost on Rodgers.
“You have to savor these a little bit,” Rodgers said after securing his final division championship in 2021, according to ESPN. “These are special. It’s just the first step in our goals, but a lot of times the coach speak — I’m not saying that Matt did this — but a lot of times there might be coach speak that takes over and says, ‘Hey, you know this is just one goal, and we have bigger goals and stuff,’ but I think it’s important to keep that perspective on how special accomplishing this is three years in a row, and so just to enjoy it, to savor it, savor these moments. These are special moments.”
Rodgers and the Packers saw their three-year run come to a crashing halt in 2022. The Vikings finished the season 13-4. The Packers finished 8-9 and missed out on the playoffs after falling to the Detroit Lions at home in the final game of the regular season. The Lions ended with a record of 9-8.
How many times have the Packers won the NFC North?
The North is sometimes known as the “black and blue division” because of the hard-nosed football that has come to characterize games between divisional opponents. That’s typically been the brand of football played in the NFC North, especially as the weather gets cold, but no matter the playing style, divisional games are never a cakewalk.
The division was known as the NFC Central from 1967 to 2001. It was rebranded to the NFC North in 2002 when the Houston Texans were added to the league as an expansion team, and the NFL realigned the league into eight divisions. Since that realignment and the creation of the NFC North, the Packers have won the division 12 times.
Going all the way back to the creation of the NFC Central in 1967, the Packers have won the division 17 times.
In that span, the Minnesota Vikings still have the most divisional championships with 21, thanks to a dominant run in the 1970s. The Chicago Bears have won the division 11 times, while the Detroit Lions have won it just three times, with their last division title coming in 1993.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were previously members of the division from 1997 to the realignment in 2002. The Buccaneers won the NFC Central three times but were never part of the NFC North.
