No one in the NFC North views the Detroit Lions as rivals

It’s rivalry week here at SB Nation, and last week we asked fans across all of our NFL blogs to vote on who they think is their team’s biggest rival. The NFC North is a division without any true iconic sports rivalries, and the shift in power has led to differing opinions on which team is a true rival and which teams are just simply divisional opponents.

But one thing that has remained relatively constant is that nobody views the Detroit Lions as their primary rival. The FanPulse results from Acme Packing Company (Packers), Windy City Gridiron (Bears) and Daily Norseman (Vikings) didn’t even result in a single percentage of voters picking the Lions as their biggest rival. Check it out:

The Vikings had the gall to not even consider the Lions in their top four choices for biggest rival.

While it’s not exactly surprising that the other three NFC North teams don’t view the Lions—who haven’t won a division title in 25 years—as a rival, it may surprise the other three fanbases just how good the Lions have been in the division lately. Here’s the Lions’ record against each team since 2013:

Packers: 6-5
Vikings: 6-5
Bears: 9-2

Of course, all three divisional foes hold the all-time record over Detroit and none of them are particularly close. Still, rivalries tend to carry a heavy recency bias unless they’re one of sports greatest rivalries (Ohio State-Michigan, Yankees-Red Sox, etc.). Just think about how Colts-Patriots used to be a thing, but now that Peyton Manning is gone, the rivalry is completely dead.

As for the Lions, you can probably guess who fans believe their biggest rival is. It’s the team that always draws the most ire, and always seems to be starting a quarterback that has the Lions’ number:

Now that the Packers are finally going through some similar struggles, maybe they’ll eventually consider the Lions a rival soon. After all, the two teams have faced off in some pretty iconic games as of late.