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The Green Bay Packers are the most storied team in all of professional football, if not all of American sports.

With their 100th anniversary on the horizon, let’s take a look at some of the biggest moments in the history of the Green and Gold.

Creating the Super Bowl Champion

By the time the Super Bowl was invented, the Packers had already won 11 championships and their home turf, Lambeau Field, was already a decade old. In 1966, the AFL and the NFL decided to invent a whole new game intended to prove who was the best of the best, regardless of which league they played in. The Pack answered the challenge and took on the Kansas City Chiefs. They absolutely crushed the AFL squad (35-10), cementing their team and the NFL’s supremacy.

The following season, they once again earned the right to take on the AFL champions, this time the then-competitive Oakland Raiders (hard to imagine now, but the Raiders were actually good once). They once again crushed their opponents, this time by a score of 33-14, and the trophy was subsequently renamed after coach Vince Lombardi two years later in honor of the team. Ever since, whomever the champion team is will look down and see the name of a Packer.

Return to the Top

After winning the first two championships, the Packers fell on hard times with the departure of Lombardi, quarterback Bart Starr, and a slew of other greats. But in the 1990s, they got back on track under the leadership of Brett Favre at quarterback and Reggie White crushing it on the defensive side of the ball. In 1996 they took on the New England Patriots, delivering a 35-21 beating that set the Pats back until the next millennium. The following year, the Packers steamrolled almost all of the competition on the way to the NFC Championship against the then-dominant San Francisco 49ers. They ultimately fell short in the Super Bowl to the Denver Broncos and John Elway 31-24 in a tit-for-tat contest that left everybody on edge.

The Offensive Juggernaut of the New Millenium

Since 2000, the Green and Gold has won their division 9 times. Until 2007 Brett Favre steered the ship, seemingly ageless, before his ignominious departure. Fortunately for the Pack, they had Aaron Rodgers ready to take the helm. Rodgers proceeded to take not only the Packers but the quarterback position to the next level, following the lead of the Colts’ Peyton Manning and Patriots’ Tom Brady before him.

Rodgers has led the team ever since, snagging a nice little Super Bowl win against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010 by a score of 31-25. In the meantime he has crushed the record books for yardage, accuracy, scoring, and a number of other categories, becoming a fixture in fantasy football-winning lineups. The team is now a perennial contender and, even though they may fall short, they are almost always in the conversation for the top team. The best part is that they have done it while remaining the smallest market team in professional football, keeping their hometown appeal and roots intact.

Go Pack Go!

(Cropped image courtesy Brian Giesen via Flickr. | CC BY 2.0)