Steelers-Ravens cream of the crop among NFL rivalries

• The NFL's oldest rivalry remains one of the best
• Rex Ryan's obsession with beating Bill Belichick has added intrigue to Jets-Patriots

Tensions will be renewed Sunday when the Baltimore Ravens play the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field. Though relatively new, the rivalry between AFC North teams is one of the fiercest in the league.

Shared defensive excellence, divisional playoff positioning and rabid blue-collar fans have made Ravens-Steelers must-see football over the past five years. That the teams meet this season twice in three weeks — the scene shifts to Baltimore on Dec. 2 — should increase the antagonism.

That backdrop has helped Ravens-Steelers beat out older, more traditional pairings in our list of the top current rivalries in the NFL.

1. Ravens vs. Steelers

In the world of free agency, coaching trees and mass turnover, on-field rivalries don't have the same bite. Fans keep the feuds alive, but players and coaches increasingly see rivalry games as just another week on the schedule. Legendary Washington Redskins coach George Allen hated the Dallas Cowboys with every fiber of his being, but you get the sense that current coach Mike Shanahan doesn't particularly care who's lined up on the other side of the field.

Tune out the crowd noise, and a Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears contest doesn't look any different than a New Orleans Saints-Bears game would.

Recent games between the Ravens and Steelers have the feeling of those 1980s battles between Dallas and Washington. There's ramped-up intensity from kickoff until the clock hits zero. Passes have more zip. Players pop up more quickly. Hitting is harder. You don't just hear it or see it; you feel it.

"It's almost surreal," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said last season. "All of a sudden, everything's different. You go into this dark place. It's like you're in this globe, in a good way, and suddenly there's nothing outside of that moment, outside of that stadium."

When the players do get outside the stadium, they keep up the rivalry.

The Ravens' Terrell Suggs and Steelers' James Harrison, in particular, play it up before and after games. This theme reached a crescendo in 2009 when a radio host asked Suggs whether the Ravens had bounties out on Rashard Mendenhall and Hines Ward.

"Definitely," Suggs said. "The bounty was out on him, and the bounty was out on (Ward) — we just didn't get him between the whistles."

Suggs insisted he was joking. An NFL probe cleared him of wrongdoing. Suggs also enjoys wearing T-shirts with profane, anti-Steelers messages around Ravens training facilities. One had an anthropomorphic Raven raising a middle finger to the city of Pittsburgh.

They have met three times in a season twice since 2008, with Pittsburgh winning the AFC Championship Game in the 2008 season and an AFC divisional playoff game at home in the 2010 season. The Ravens swept two games last season. This year, the Ravens are jockeying for position with the Steelers for a possible home playoff matchup.

Home-field advantage is particularly key in this rivalry. Since 2008, the Steelers and Ravens are a combined 59-13 on home turf.

"I hate losing to them," Harrison said in 2011. "I hate losing to anybody, but to them it's a lot worse."

2. Washington Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys

Thanks to mismanagement and coaching carousels, recent stakes haven't been as high for the teams involved in the NFL's greatest historic rivalry. The once-mighty Cowboys and Redskins have combined for fewer playoff wins since 1997 (three) than their division rival New York Giants had last season (four).

The passion for the rivalry hasn't diminished among fans.

When ex-Redskins coach Joe Gibbs spoke to the Cowboys at a chapel session this year, it caused such an uproar in Washington that the three-time Super Bowl winner went on local radio to explain how his words were about religion, not to motivate the hated Cowboys.

During the mea culpa, a radio host suggested to Gibbs that there'd be nothing wrong with him giving a pep talk to the Cowboys.

"I would see something wrong with that, because I don't want to do that," he said. "I'm a Redskin."

3. New England Patriots vs. New York Jets

Rex Ryan was crowing about the Patriots before he coached a game for the Jets. When he took the job in 2009, New York was mired in a 3-13 stretch against New England and had seen its rivals to the north win three Super Bowl titles. That didn't deter Ryan from swinging up.

"I never came here to kiss Bill Belichick's, you know, rings," he said before that season, hesitating with a mid-sentence pause that suggested that maybe he had wanted to say something else.

Outspoken Ryan didn't have such a filter last season, when he cursed at a fan while walking off the field at halftime of a Jets loss to the Patriots. "Bill Belichick is better than you," the fan said.

Ryan's profane reply earned him a $75,000 fine.

He has narrowed the gap — a 3-5 record against the Patriots and consecutive AFC Championship Game appearances in his first two years — but Belichick and his rings remain kings of the AFC.

4. Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers

Can Bears-Packers be a great current rivalry when Green Bay has won five consecutive times, including the NFC Championship Game at Soldier Field two seasons ago?

Consider: The teams have been playing each other since 1921. It's the league's oldest rivalry.

They've played 185 times, also an NFL record. Chicago leads 92-87-6.

Brett Favre and Charles Martin (the Packer whose vicious hit of Jim McMahon helped derail Chicago's back-to-back title hopes in 1986) are still dirty words in the Windy City.

A Green Bay landlord reportedly tried to evict tenants because they were Bears fans who lied about rooting for the Packers.

There's also this: The NFC champion receives the George Halas Trophy, named after the Bears founder. Win the Super Bowl, and you get a trophy named after legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi.

Yes, the teams have met twice in the postseason — including that infamous 2010 championship game remembered most for Jay Cutler's injury.

And, remarkably, they have made the playoffs in the same season only four times.

Green Bay and Chicago are arguably the best teams in the NFC this season, and their Dec. 16 game could decide the NFC North and determine a playoff bye.

5. Philadelphia Eagles vs. New York Giants

The signature moment of this NFC East rivalry took place more than 50 years ago when Chuck Bednarik laid out Frank Gifford and stood over him with a raised fist, setting the scene for an iconic photograph.

Hostilities have continued on and off the field.

A war of words between Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora and Eagles running back LeSean McCoy has brought recent mentions of ballerinas, Mother's Day and Lady Gaga.

And a furious Eagles comeback in late 2010, capped by DeSean Jackson's late punt-return touchdown, gave Philadelphia the tiebreaker for the NFC East title.

That win put the Eagles at 10-4 and increased talk of a Super Bowl run. Philly lost its next three games and is 11-17 since. It might stand as the last great moment of the Andy Reid era. The Giants won the Super Bowl one season later.