The new National Football League season is under way, and the Green Bay Packers entertain the Chicago Bears today in one 2006 opener.

But don’t look for Ryan Longwell at Lambeau Field.

For the first time since 1996, Longwell won’t be handling the place-kicking duties for the Packers. During the offseason, the part-time Bend resident left Green Bay for greener pastures – in Minnesota, with the Vikings.

”It was kind of odd at the first minicamp, putting on a purple (Vikings team color) helmet,” Longwell said Friday by phone from his new home in Eden Prairie, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.

It’s all the more strange because the Packers, with whom Longwell had played his entire pro career, and the Vikings, his new team, are bitter longtime rivals in the NFC North Division. In fact, while wearing Green Bay green and gold, Longwell was a persistent thorn in the Vikings’ side – in 2004 alone, he beat Minnesota twice with game-ending field goals.

Not so strange, though, is how Longwell ended up in Minneapolis. In short, when his five-year contract with Green Bay expired after the 2005 season, Longwell became a free agent. The Packers could have retained him by designating him as their ”franchise player” at a price of $2.468 million. But they didn’t do that – nor did they make the greatest kicker in Green Bay history an offer he felt he could live with.

”It hurt a little, yeah,” Longwell reflected. ”You give all you have to an organization, and after nine years they don’t want you – or don’t come at you like they want to keep you. … But I kinda had a vibe, even before the start of last season, that this was gonna be the end.”

So Longwell tested the free-agent market, and the Vikings were quick to call.

”They came at us hard and fast,” Longwell recalled.

And in March, on the first day of the free-agent signing period, Longwell signed a five-year, $10 million contract with Minnesota, a deal that included a $3 million signing bonus.

”A very good deal for a kicker,” Longwell called it.

And not bad for the young man who graduated from Bend High School in 1992 and went on to kick collegiately at Cal-Berkeley.

Undrafted out of college, Longwell signed on with the Packers as a free agent after being released by the San Francisco 49ers during training camp in 1997. He won the starting job with the Packers, and as a rookie he made 24 of 30 field-goal tries and scored a team-high 120 points to help Green Bay reach the Super Bowl.

Longwell went on to become the Packers’ all-time leading scorer (1,054 points).

By his own standards, last season was a poor one for Longwell: He made only 20 of his 27 field-goal attempts (74.1 percent, 26th in the league). Yet he remains one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history (making 81.6 percent of his field goals to rank eighth all-time). And he can hope for even better now with the move from often cold and blustery Lambeau to the indoor comforts of the climate-controlled Metrodome.

”I guess I did think I was always going to be a Packer,” Longwell admitted. ”But the NFL is a business – for the teams, for the coaches, for the players. And invariably, things change.”

And now, things have changed for Longwell.

”After so many years in one place, you never know how a transition like this will go,” he said. ”But it’s been real smooth.

”I’m 32 now, and I realize that getting to a warm climate, or into a dome, is going to be beneficial to the longevity of my career. It helps put the odds in my favor.”

Longwell will face his former team twice this season: on Nov. 12 in Minneapolis, and on Dec. 21, a Thursday night game at Green Bay.

The Vikings open the regular season this Monday night on the road against the Washington Redskins.

Watch for Ryan Longwell. Same number (8), different jersey.