The Cleveland Browns, despite the small hiatus due to Art Modell's relocation, stretch back as one of the oldest NFL franchises, even before the AFL-NFL merger and Super Bowl era.

Due to their history, the Browns have accrued quite a few rivalries along the way. Here are their five biggest rivals, ranked.

5. Detroit Lions

The animosity between the two Great Lake metropolises in the Detroit Lions and Browns is drawn out from the constant matchups in the 1950s for pre–Super Bowl championship games. The Lions and Browns met four times, including three times in a row in 1952-54, in the postseason, with Detroit owning a three to one advantage.

Since then, the Browns' change in scenery by way of a move to the AFC has limited cross-exposure between franchises. Overall, the Lions own the regular-season series, with the Browns 4-16 in the matchups they've seen.

4. Buffalo Bills

Despite Buffalo Bills original owner Ralph Wilson voting against the Browns' relocation to Baltimore, the Bills and Browns share a small rivalry due to their proximity and history back when Buffalo had a different franchise called the Bills before the AFL-NFL merger.

The Bills and Browns met once in the postseason in 1989-90, a four-point Browns victory in the AFC Divisional Round, eventually getting beat by the Super Bowl XXIV–losing Denver Broncos. The Browns also lost to the Bills in Week 13 of the 2014 regular season, on the way to five consecutive losses, dashing playoff hopes.

3. Denver Broncos

Speaking of the Broncos, Denver and Cleveland met three times in four years at the end of the '80s during Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway‘s heyday. Elway and the Broncos got the better of the Browns every single time, stinging the pain Clevelanders, including “The Drive”—Elway's famous (or infamous) near-field-length comeback score—and an Earnest Byner's fumble a year later to seal another Broncos W.

Cleveland has only gone 6-21 in the regular season against their fellow AFC opponent.

2. Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers are definitely one of the fiercest rivals of the Browns, due to geographical closeness and same division, boiling over most recently in the Week 1 brawl between the two sides, when Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett struck Pittsburgh QB Mason Rudolph with his helmet.

One of the oldest rivalries in football, the Steelers and Browns have played each other twice since even before the AFC North—clashing before the AFL-NFL merger during the '50s, too. The Steelers own a 74-59-1 regular-season advantage over Cleveland, along with winning both postseason matchups. Pittsburgh beat Cleveland by 20 points in the divisional round in Jan. 1995 and later said “goodbye” to the Browns in 2002-02—Cleveland's last playoff appearance—with a three-point margin of victory after a 22-point fourth-quarter comeback from Tommy Maddox and Pittsburgh.

1. Baltimore Ravens

The Ravens certainly are the “dearest” rivals of the Browns, mostly due to Modell's move to Baltimore, hurting Cleveland fans endlessly.

While never meeting in the postseason, the Browns and the Ravens meet twice a year in the AFC North. Additionally, in the time the Ravens established in Baltimore and the Browns re-established in Cleveland, much of the Ravens' core group of players entered the league with draft picks that could have helped Cleveland win a title, instead winning Super Bowl XXXV for Baltimore.

More recently, the Browns took Heisman Trophy-winning signal-caller Baker Mayfield out of Oklahoma with the first overall pick in 2018, passing on another Heisman winning quarterback in Lamar Jackson, who was taken by Baltimore with the last pick in the first round. Jackson won last season's league MVP while earning the best record in the NFL while Cleveland was on the outside looking into the postseason for another year gone by.