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They practiced on the same field Wednesday for one period as Winston's Tampa Bay Buccaneers worked out with Mariota's Tennessee Titans. There wasn't time for any chit chat between them.

"I just know he's a great guy, and I just love seeing him out here competing," Winston said.

NFL fans know more than that. They are both quarterbacks. They are both Heisman Trophy winners, and they were the first players drafted in 2015.

But they didn't get a chance watch one another practice, much less catch up on things.

"It was separate, so I didn't really get a chance to go see him," Mariota said.

The decision by Tampa Bay coach Dirk Koetter and first-year Titans coach Mike Vrabel for their teams to work out together before Saturday night's preseason game brought back up the Winston-Mariota debate.

The two worked out together before the 2015 NFL draft out in California. Titans general manager Jon Robinson worked with Tampa Bay when the Buccaneers chose Winston as the No. 1 pick overall over Mariota. Now Robinson has Mariota as the first of those two quarterbacks not only to reach the playoffs but win a game once in the postseason.

"Mariota, he just does a great job and the Tennessee Titans have a good football team," Winston said. "We have a good football team too. We just have to win more games. It's always good to compete against guys, but he's done a great job here and I have to continue to work on my craft and lead our team to the playoffs."

The Bucs will be without Winston for the first three games this season as the quarterback sits out a suspension for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy. The NFL announced the suspension in June after the league investigated an allegation Winston groped a female Uber driver in Arizona in March 2016.

That's why Ryan Fitzpatrick started the Bucs' exhibition opener, a 26-24 win over Miami, and Winston worked with the second-team. Koetter said Fitzpatrick got the majority of the work with the Bucs' first-team offense when they worked on a separate field against the Titans' defense.

Winston and Mariota will practice against each other again Thursday in the second of joint practices between the Bucs (1-0) and Titans (0-1). Then Fitzpatrick is expected to start again Saturday night.

Koetter declined to compare where Winston and Mariota are now as quarterbacks going into their fourth seasons, happy with Winston.

"I'm not a good person to ask that Jeremiah George Jersey , because I coach Jameis and I rarely get a chance to watch Marcus," Koetter said. "We know where Jameis is at, you've documented that many times. I can't compare the two because I rarely get to watch Marcus."

Not only does Mariota have the edge over Winston in the NFL with a playoff victory, he also has two very big wins. Mariota and Oregon routed Winston and Florida State 59-20 in the College Football Playoff semifinal in January 2015 . Mariota also is 1-0 against Winston and the Bucs with a 42-14 win in the quarterbacks' NFL debut in 2015.

The 2014 Heisman Trophy winner said he's never really been concerned with being linked to Winston during the pre-draft process or since. Mariota knows who he is and focuses on trying to improve himself.

"It's always kind of interesting our paths cross again," Mariota said. "But it is good to see him, and hopefully we'll just continue to find ways to get better and look back on it and just kind of laugh about it."

Or will the Green Bay Packers rebound forcefully enough to take back the division they've mostly dominated for two decades?

The annual report on the NFC North has almost always focused on the Packers, the Vikings or both of these fierce rivals since the NFL's most recent realignment produced the current eight-division format in 2002.

With new head coaches in Detroit (Matt Patricia) and Chicago (Matt Nagy) this year, a big breakout by the Lions or Bears would be necessary to bump the Vikings and Packers from the lead story of 2018.

The Vikings overcame early season knee injuries to quarterback Sam Bradford and running back Dalvin Cook to finish 13-3 and beat New Orleans on the last-second touchdown pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs, before the league's best defense was dissected and humbled by eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia in the NFC title game.

Bradford and Keenum departed with Teddy Bridgewater as free agents, but the Vikings signed the best available replacement on the market in Kirk Cousins . They upgraded at defensive tackle with Sheldon Richardson, too, toting as many top-tier players in the 22-man starting lineup as any competitor in the NFL.

With the aspiration of winning the Super Bowl for the first time in the franchise's 58-year history http://www.greenbaypackersteamonline.com/montravius-adams-jersey , the Vikings must be concerned about an entire NFC that's as stacked as ever. But for Minnesota, there's no greater competition, now or over the past quarter-century, than Green Bay.

The Packers are past the pain of losing two-time league MVP award winner Aaron Rodgers, whose broken collarbone in the sixth game of the season effectively ended the dream scenario of hoisting the Super Bowl trophy on Minnesota's home turf.

Five-time Pro Bowl tight end Jimmy Graham has joined Green Bay's dangerous offense. As if Rodgers needed anymore motivation to go with his game-changing ability, the Vikings are the very team that knocked him out of action when linebacker Anthony Barr flattened him with a hard hit.

So who's the favorite here? Well, the answer will start to form quickly, when the Vikings visit the Packers in the second game on Sept. 16.

Here's a quick tour around the NFC North:

TOUGH TASK: The pressure is heavy on Cousins to perform as well or better than Keenum did as a fill-in for Minnesota last fall. The offensive line is again carrying major question marks, with right guard Joe Berger retired and left guard Nick Easton likely out for the year with a neck injury. Center Pat Elflein has missed the entire preseason with his rehabilitation from shoulder and ankle surgeries moving slower than anticipated.

The schedule is stiffer for the Vikings, too, with road trips to NFC powers Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle and a visit to AFC champion New England.

"It's trying to just restart that process and make sure that we know that we're not just getting handed 13 wins," wide receiver Adam Thielen said. "Thirteen wins in the NFL is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter how good you are."

SECONDARY? MORE LIKE PRIMARY: Since winning the Super Bowl nearly eight years ago Cameron Meredith Jersey , in Rodgers' third season as the starter, Green Bay has not been back. The pass defense has been the biggest culprit, and for a second straight year the front office used the top of the draft to add cornerbacks. Kevin King was the first pick in 2017, and Jaire Alexander and Josh Jackson were the first two players off the board in 2018 . There's a new defensive coordinator now, too: Mike Pettine.

Having a healthy Rodgers back was the biggest step the Packers could take toward returning to the playoffs, after their streak of eight straight appearances was stopped, but a deeper and stronger secondary was necessary to get back on that championship track.

"We all should be better for the negative experiences that we've encountered in the past," coach Mike McCarthy said.

NEW BOSS: The Lions took two more significant steps toward lifting a lagging ground game by drafting Kerryon Johnson in the second round out of Auburn and signing LeGarrette Blount, who has carried the ball for two of the past three Super Bowl winners. There's no more important addition in Detroit than Patricia, though.

Patricia was the defensive coordinator for the last six of his 14 seasons with New England, where he left with three Super Bowl rings. He's joining a franchise that has won one playoff game in the past 60 years, so the change in mindset and atmosphere he has brought to the Lions is even more important than his acumen in engineering a defense.

"He laid down the law. He gave us the rules, and he came in with energy Jerry Hughes Jersey ," linebacker Jarrad Davis said. "He came in, made it clear, gave us the expectations, and now we have something we can chase."

LETTING IT LOOSE: Over the past four regular seasons, the Vikings and Packers each went 39-25 and the Lions were close behind with a cumulative record of 36-28. The Bears went 19-45. That's why Nagy is here, after serving as the offensive coordinator in Kansas City last year.

The most important part of his job for now will be guiding quarterback Mitchell Trubisky , the second overall pick in the 2017 draft who was brought along carefully after taking over as the starter midway through his rookie season. Trubisky was also handed three new targets: wide receivers Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel and tight end Trey Burton.

"Just go out there and play freely and let your instincts take over," Trubisky said. "And then when we make mistakes, just go back and learn from it."

PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH: Vikings, Packers, Lions, Bears.