What’s your favorite NFL rivalry?

Familiarity breeds contempt. Nowhere is that proverb more true than the NFL.

Tightly packed divisions have created brutal rivalries between teams that see each other twice a year (and sometimes again in the postseason). The Cowboys and Eagles have battled every year since 1960 and the hate has never taken a day off that entire time. The Falcons and Saints have played 100 times, though the rivalry is mostly defined by their fans roasting each other for their high-profile embarrassing losses to other teams.

This year, the Seahawks and 49ers look ready to bring their rivalry back to the forefront of the NFL after it dominated the NFC from 2011-14.

The league’s scheduling process also ensures division champions face fellow winners the following year, pitting the league’s top teams in marquee, playoff-defining matchups on a near-annual basis. The Colts left the AFC East in 2001, but their consistent spot among the league’s top teams means they’ve played the Patriots 17 times since then.

Those are all good rivalries, but are they great ones? It all depends on what you look for most in a rivalry.

There’s really no wrong answer when it comes to deciding on a favorite rivalry, especially with so many options to choose from in the NFL. Here’s what a few of us picked, starting with two teams who’ve been doing this since 1921:

Full disclosure: I live in Wisconsin. It is a wonderful state with beautiful summers, a seemingly endless supply of amazing food, and mostly friendly people. Every small town has its own brewery and bars outnumber churches 3-to-1. And every tavern in this state worth its salt has this beauty prominently displayed in the jukebox.

Just listen to it. Your arteries clog up a little bit every time the “chorus” hits. If you put a glass of milk near your speakers as it plays, curds instinctively begin to form at the top. The lead singer declares this friendly rivalry is all in fun, then earnestly hopes Mike Ditka gets vehicularly manslaughtered. It is delightful.

I’ve been up here since 2010, a span in which the Packers are 16-4 against the Bears. And yet, my local watering hole (what’s up, Paul’s Neighborhood Bar?) acts as if every game against the team down south is the most important contest of Green Bay’s season. Every regular has a Bears story, whether it’s calling Jim McMahon a fraud, Jay Cutler “gutless,” or just pointing to the screen and chuckling whenever Mitchell Trubisky drops back to pass.

Packers-Bears is always an event, no matter the stakes. Packers-Vikings isn’t too far behind. And the Packers also play the Lions twice a year, though no one seems to notice unless Aaron Rodgers happens to throw a football to the moon and back that day. — Christian D’Andrea

This is a classic California rivalry between two original American Football League franchises — both of which will be playing in cities they have no business being in.

Both teams have rarely been good at the same time, with the 1980 AFC Championship Game their only postseason matchup in 60 years of existence. The Raiders won that game on their way to a Super Bowl victory, and also won the most famous Chargers-Raiders tilt two years earlier: the Holy Roller, a fumble by Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler that fortuitously found its way 10 yards downfield into tight end Dave Casper’s hands in the end zone for a winning touchdown. The play was so ridiculous it spawned a rule change, disallowing advancement of a fumble by anyone but the player who coughed the ball up.

Most of my life watching these two teams has involved failure, save for my freshman year in college at UC San Diego coinciding with the Chargers’ lone trip to the Super Bowl. I’ve watched a lot of bad, yet strangely watchable games between these two teams. My favorite Chargers-Raiders game — narrowly beating out watching Harvey Williams score four touchdowns on just seven touches in San Diego in 1997 — was an abomination of a contest in 1998.

Rookie quarterback Ryan Leaf and someone on the Raiders named Donald Hollas helped both sides combine for five interceptions and eight sacks. The game was eye-gougingly bad, with the Chargers leading 6-0 while holding Oakland under 100 yards of offense for the first 58 minutes. The teams combined for 27 punts, including 16 by the Raiders’ Leo Araguz, a record that still stands. But all of a sudden there was life, in the form of withered veteran quarterback Wade Wilson, in his penultimate NFL season, unleashing a 68-yard bomb to James Jett with 1:38 remaining to give Oakland a victory they had no business getting.

This was the Raiders’ drive chart for the game, which nicely encapsulates both teams’ relevance for the last quarter century:

The Chargers actually played in Los Angeles before the Raiders — the Bolts’ inaugural season (1960) was in LA before they moved to San Diego. But the Raiders’ 13-year stay in LA still resonates locally, so much so that the Chargers have yet to gain any traction in the city since moving back north on Interstate 5. Now in their third season back in Los Angeles, Chargers home games are famous for having more fans rooting for their opponents.

2020 will bring new stadia for both teams, with the Chargers moving with the Rams into SoFi Stadium and the Raiders calling Allegiant Stadium home in Las Vegas, their third city in franchise history. The cities will be unfamiliar, but the Raiders-Chargers rivalry has always been a little weird so it seems fitting. — Eric Stephen

Ah yes, a rivalry as old as ... last year.

You’re probably rolling your eyes at the suggestion that the Bills and Jaguars — two teams with a combined seven winning seasons in the last 20 years — are the best rivalry in the NFL. But what makes a good rivalry, exactly?

If it’s competitiveness, this duel has qualified lately. The Jaguars squeaked out a 10-3 win over the Bills in the playoffs in January 2018. Buffalo evened the score 10 months later with a 24-21 victory that included a brawl that got Bills defensive end Shaq Lawson and Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette ejected.

If it’s trash talk and contempt, Jalen Ramsey stirred up plenty of trouble with the Bills before forcing his way out of town. He called multiple players on Bills sideline trash, and made it publicly clear that he thinks quarterback Josh Allen is trash too.

But what’s really important is that Duval and Bills Mafia found each other, because they’re a perfect pair.

Jaguars fans do things like bellyflop into pools of mayonnaise and proudly reign as the troll kings of the NFL. Earlier this season, the Jaguars went all out taunting poor Sam Darnold about ghosts.

And Jacksonville has its perfect trolling target in Bills fans: A fanbase that will always go to bat for its team, and proudly dive through tables to show support.

Unfortunately, the goofiest rivalry of 2018 has lost a little bit of its luster a year later. Ramsey was the main instigator on the field and now he’s in Los Angeles. The Jaguars and Bills didn’t land on each other’s schedule, robbing us of a Josh Allen vs. Josh Allen battle.

But the good news is that there’s a chance the teams will meet in 2020, and a guarantee that they’ll see each other in 2021. When they do, there will be another clash of two unique fanbases and the rivalry will for sure be back on. I can’t wait. — Adam Stites

The AFC North has every different rivalry you can think of: Intrastate (Bengals-Browns), interstate (all the others), old school (Browns-Steelers), Art Modell created (Browns-Ravens), and the one that’s not healthy for anyone (Steelers-Bengals).

But there’s only one that is both fierce and consistently competitive: Steelers vs. Ravens. You know whenever these two teams face off, either side could win — and it’ll probably be close.

Pittsburgh holds a 28-23 series lead over Baltimore, including a 3-1 record in the playoffs. Since the rivalry began in 1996, each franchise has won two Super Bowls apiece.

They also have two of the longest-tenured current head coaches in the NFL. Mike Tomlin became the Steelers’ head coach in 2007, and the Ravens hired John Harbaugh the following year. The rivalry was heated before the Tomlin and Harbaugh eras, of course, lest anyone forgets when Joey Porter hopped on the Ravens’ team bus to try to fight Ray Lewis. However, there’s no denying they have ratcheted up the intensity after both coaches came on board.

Since 2008, the series is tied 13-13, while 19 of their games have been decided by one score (14 of those by three points or fewer). They’ve met three times in the postseason. In six of those seasons, they’ve finished 1-2 in the division standings.

There was that time Haloti Ngata accidentally broke Ben Roethlisberger’s nose (and later cited it in his retirement speech). And that time Terrell Suggs was investigated (and cleared) for saying there was a bounty on Rashard Mendenhall and Hines Ward. And all the times Suggs needled Roethlisberger.

Don’t forget Ward leveling Ed Reed, Tomlin getting in Jacoby Jones’ way, and the Immaculate Extension, either.

Underneath all the hate, there’s real respect, though, and that’s what sets it apart from so many other rivalries in the NFL. Even as most of the faces have changed, that begrudged appreciation for each other — and the level playing field — has remained the same. — Sarah Hardy

Those are just *our* picks. Which NFL rivalry is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.