One of the most remarkable things about the Green Bay Packers is how long in their recent team history they’ve had a top-flight quarterback to depend on. Unlike more mortal teams like the Vikings (or Bears, or Lions, or …), Packer fans aren’t used to the notion of uncertainty at the most important position in the game of football. After Aaron Rodgers was injured, Packer fans suddenly had to discover what it’s like being a fan of a team without a superstar under centre:

Not all Packers starting quarterbacks were named Starr, Favre or Rodgers. You could look it up.

There was a time, children, when Packer Nation not only wasn’t called Packer Nation, because nobody back then conferred statehood on people because they wore the same-colored hoodies, but also because it was embarrassing to admit you followed a team that called Randy Wright its starting quarterback for an entire season.

Bart Starr started at least one game at quarterback every season for the Packers from 1956 through 1971. Favre became the NFL’s most admirable iron man from 1992 through 2007 before beginning his Sojourn of Revenge. Aaron Rodgers pried Favre’s cold, live digits off the baton in 2008 and, until suffering an injury on Nov. 4, didn’t require a backup, much like Starr and Favre.

In the three weeks since Rodgers’ injury, the Packers have been reminded what it’s like to hold open tryouts at the most important position in sports. They have learned what it’s like to be the modern Vikings — and the Packers of 1971-1992.

This is how shoddy the Packers’ quarterback play was in their Dark Years: In 1989, Packer Province believed a mullet-headed unknown named Don Majkowski was a savior.

The Pack won the Super Bowl following the 1967 season. They would not win another postseason game until Favre took them to the conference title game in 1995. Between the tenures of Starr and Favre, the Packers would win 10 games in a season only twice.

Scott Hunter quarterbacked them to a 10-4 record in 1972. Majkowski led them to a 10-6 record in 1989.

Before Majkowski arrived, the Packers existed only as a vehicle through which to celebrate the ghost of Vince Lombardi. Lambeau Field, now a manicured shrine, was nothing but a dump. The team actually played some of its regular-season games at decrepit Milwaukee County Stadium.

Update: 1500ESPN‘s Andrew Krammer illustrates the difference at quarterback between the Packers and the Vikings:

The next chapter in the Minnesota Vikings-Green Bay Packers rivalry will be the first since 1992 that doesn’t feature either quarterbacks Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers in green and gold.

Quarterback Christian Ponder will start his sixth consecutive regular season Vikings-Packers contest since being drafted in 2011, but is the 14th Vikings’ quarterback since 1992 to do so.

What appeared to be another uphill battle at Lambeau Field suddenly became a winnable game with Rodgers on the sideline. Running back Adrian Peterson vows he will play again through an injured groin, much like he did to the tune of 65 rushing yards last week at Seattle.

Peterson racked up more than 500 rushing yards against the Packers in three games last year and will need some of the same magic to overcome Ponder’s deficiencies. The Vikings gave Ponder his fifth consecutive start this week over Matt Cassel and Josh Freeman despite his 1-6 record this season. Ponder’s also accounted for 13 of the team’s 22 turnovers and threw back-to-back fourth-quarter interceptions before his benching last week.

After the horrible performance last week in front of a national TV audience, this week the Vikings will face divisional foe Green Bay in the last match-up between the two teams at the Metrodome (which will be demolished at the end of this season). Most Vikings fans will already be worried about the game … despite a rash of injuries, the Packers are a much better team than the Giants, and this is another national TV game in the Sunday Night Football slot. Dan Zinski goes with the Halloween theme for his pre-game post:

It’s fitting that Packer week should coincide this year with Halloween season and its endless television horror movie marathons. What could be a more apt metaphor for this year’s Viking season than an unending parade of scary movies? And with the Packers coming in this week things are only going to get scarier, or at least that’s what traumatized Viking fans seem to believe.

The Vikings have had some success against Green Bay in recent years, but for the most part the Packers have been Jason to the Vikings’ screaming half-naked college co-ed. This year’s first Packer-Viking match-up figures to descend into slasher movie carnage again, with the Packers on the relentless machete-waving march and the Vikings stumbling bloody and blinded through the wilderness.

The Viking fan looking for a glimmer of hope amid the darkness might turn to the Packer injury report, which currently features such big names as Clay Matthews, Jermichael Finley and Randall Cobb. But of course we know the injury report doesn’t mean diddly poo when it comes to the Packers. Like some hideous creation of a horror movie mad scientist, when the Packers lose one of their vital parts they just grow a new one to replace it. And keep on coming after you.

The Minnesota Vikings have signed former Green Bay receiver Greg Jennings. There was no puff of smoke — white or purple — from the head office of the team, but many reports went for a Latinesque title, like Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman:

Habemus Packem: Minnesota Vikings Sign Greg Jennings

After letting the initial rush of free agency settle down a little bit, the Minnesota Vikings finally made a move at the wide receiver position on Friday, signing Greg Jennings.

(That promo headline and the headline that you saw on Twitter was all Ted, by the way. Have to give him credit for that one.)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there’s white smoke coming from Winter Park. And since Percy Harvin is in Seattle and I think Jerome Simpson is out of town, that can only really mean one thing.

We have a new receiver.

The five-year deal Jennings accepted was for $47.5 million with $18 million guaranteed. It is not quite as rich a deal as he was offered by Green Bay, but the opportunity to be the number one receiver was probably the difference maker (he’d be third or fourth receiver in Green Bay).

Also at the Daily Norseman, Ted Glover explains the Vikings’ painful recent history with their wide receiving corps:

A mercurial wide receiver wears out his welcome, but not before his team makes a playoff appearance against Green Bay. After the season, which ends in an early playoff exit, the superstar receiver finally pulls out the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and he’s traded to the West Coast for a first round pick, giving the team two first round picks and a golden opportunity to upgrade the roster.

No, I’m not talking about Percy Harvin. The year was 2005, and the receiver was Randy Moss. Moss wore out his welcome with the Vikings (maybe specifically Red McCombs), and the Vikings were able to trade him to Oakland for their first round pick and LB Napoleon Harris. Harris wasn’t the big catch in that trade, it was the Raiders first round pick, #7 overall.

The Vikings infamously used that pick from the Raiders to draft Troy Williamson, who has been the biggest bust in recent Vikings draft history not named Demetrious Underwood. I remember writing at the time that the Vikings needed to draft any position other than WR with that pick, because no matter how good that player might have been, he would always be compared to Randy Moss.

Williamson moved fast to make sure those comparisons would never had to be made, though. And other than a Pro Bowl season from Sidney Rice in 2009, the Vikings receivers as a group haven’t really recovered since then.

Which is why, on the heels of the Harvin trade, Greg Jennings is such a big deal for the Vikings. He’s been a top NFL wide receiver for several years, and his signing might be the first step in replenishing what has historically been a position of strength for the Vikings.

Jim Souhan explains why today’s game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers is big, but won’t spoil the season if the Vikings can’t pull off the win:

The Packers will play at the Metrodome/Mall of America Field/Future Demolition Site Sunday in the biggest game for the Vikings franchise since their epic loss in the 2009 NFC title game in New Orleans, and the biggest game at the Dome since the Vikings whipped the Cowboys in the ’09 division playoffs.

[. . .]

It’s a big game because a victory puts the Vikings in the playoffs and dents the Packers’ aura of divisional invincibility, but in a lot of ways it’s more dessert than main course. In a lot of ways, the Vikings already have reached their goals for the season.

Four months ago, the Wilfs didn’t know whether Leslie Frazier could succeed as a head coach. Now Frazier is in line for a contract extension. While the Colts’ duo of Chuck Pagano and Bruce Arians has helped revitalize their franchise, they’ve also won in a mediocre division and because the team tanked last season, while Frazier has had to slap a lot of mortar and super glue on his roster to win games. Frazier is as deserving as anyone of coach-of-the-year votes.

[. . .]

Four months ago, the Vikings coordinators were unproven, and a threat to Frazier’s job security. He had replaced Fred Pagac with the highly anonymous Alan Williams, and had invested great faith in Bill Musgrave’s ability to salvage Christian Ponder and establish a power-running offense. Williams has coached a defense that stuffed San Francisco and Houston, and Musgrave and his assistants have found creative ways to open holes for Peterson while coaxing competent play down the stretch from Ponder.

Four months ago, the schedule offered a few easy victories but threatened to crush the team down the stretch. It was hard to find any analysts outside the organization who believed that this team was capable of more than six or seven victories, or of surviving December. They enter Sunday’s game on a three-game winning streak, with their victory at Houston last Sunday providing their most impressive road victory since Brett Favre beat the Packers at Lambeau Field in 2009.

This was an ugly game. It will turn up on Wikipedia as the definitive video illustration for both “ugly” and “futile”. Unlike the last match-up between the Vikings and Packers at the Metrodome, there are no positives to dwell on: it was an old-fashioned butt-whipping. It was so bad that the Vikings looked pathetic against the Green Bay backups. According to a tweet from Jeremy Fowler, this is the Vikings’ worst loss since “a 51-7 clubbing by San Francisco on Dec. 8, 1984”.

For next week’s game, the Vikings are going to be starting the press corps in their secondary: injuries against Green Bay included cornerback Antoine Winfield with a fractured clavicle (probably ending his season), safety Husain Abdullah with a concussion (his second of the season), and cornerback Cedric Griffin just being himself (playing on two reconstructed knees). What would have been even more depressing for Viking fans — if the sportscasters had bothered to mention it — was quarterback Christian Ponder heading to the locker room for X-rays (negative, thank goodness).

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