Possible Vikings Wild Card Weekend Scenarios
As the old saying goes, a win is a win. That adage applies perfectly to the Vikings’ dominant (but not at all) handling of the Mac Jones-led Jacksonville Jaguars this past Sunday. While it wasn’t pretty, and plenty has been discussed about Sam Darnold’s performance in the exhibition (even silent theories about Nick Mullens taking over), there is no taking away the fact that the Minnesota Vikings are staring down the barrel of at least a wild-card entry into the 2024-2025 edition of the NFL Playoffs.
It’s been likely since Minnesota’s infamous 5-0 start that they would be locking up a spot in the yearly dance, but you can never be sure about this team and what to expect. After all, six teams have missed the playoffs since 1990 after a 5-0 start, and the purple represent two of them, including the most recent version in 2016 after their fiery start under Sam Bradford’s lead.
With their 7th win in their first nine contest, the Vikings are given an 89% chance to at least lock up a playoff berth by season end per ESPN’s 2024 Playoff Projections as of November 12th.
The only NFC teams with a greater chance, according to ESPN, are the Detroit Lions at 99%, the Philadelphia Eagles at 95%, and the Washington Commanders at 90%. They also give the Vikings a 12% chance to win the NFC North division title (Detroit is given an 83% chance), an 8% chance to earn the conference’s first seed and clinch a bye, and a 9% chance to represent the conference in the Super Bowl.
So, assuming (and justifiably being hesitant to assume a good thing about the Minnesota Vikings football club) the team earns a trip to the playoffs, who could they face in the first round?
Nobody
This one is quite concise: they defy the 8% odds given to them by ESPN to lock up the NFC’s first seed and wild card rest week. The only thing they could face is the nerves of the coming week.
Arizona Cardinals
Kyler Murray has seemingly silenced the “Call of Duty” narrative surrounding his name and consequential play after the release of the yearly video game franchise, leading the birds to a 3-0 record since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s worldwide drop on October 25th. They are in the midst of a four-game win streak (winning their last two each by at least 20 points) and have won five of their last six games.
ESPN gives them a 63% to make the playoffs, heavily supported by their 52% chance to win the NFC West given their 6-4 record and San Francisco’s slow start. Arizona winning the division and having a worse record than the winner of the NFC South (likely the Falcons) while Minnesota finishes 2nd in the NFC North would be the most likely generation of this matchup, as the Vikings would likely have the 5th seed if they were to come 2nd in the NFC North, and Arizona would boast the 4th seed.
Washington Commanders
In a scenario similar to the Cardinals one, this would see Minnesota being the 5th seed after a 2nd-place finish in the NFC North and Washington winning their division but having the worst record among the division winners. This scenario seems less likely right now, as things seem to be trending towards the Eagles and Commanders being in a dogfight for the NFC East crown, driving their records up and giving the 2nd place finisher the 5th or 6th seed.
The Commanders are off to their best start in a long time and don’t look to be slowing down. They still looked legitimate enough in their loss this past weekend to the very good Pittsburgh Steelers, who seem to be flying under the radar themselves. Washington’s 90% chance to make the playoffs comes with a 36% chance to win the NFC East.
New ownership, along with Dan Quinn and Jayden Daniels, have this organization in a great spot going forward. The Commanders will likely be a team mentioned a lot in years to come when it comes to predicting potential Vikings playoff foes.
Atlanta Falcons
I don’t even have to mention the storylines here. However, the offseason daydreaming of a playoff matchup against the Kirk Cousins-captained Atlanta Falcons seems to become more and more likely with every passing week of NFL action.
Atlanta is the team immediately behind Minnesota in playoff odds with 86%. Accompanying that is their 84% chance to win the NFC South, the highest chance of any NFC team to win their division. This somewhat leads to them being division winners by default, seeing that Tampa Bay is feisty enough to compete but is just too injured and questionably coached to make a legit run at the division title.
It also helps that the NFC South is called home to two of the worst teams in football (the kind of tenants that don’t even pay rent) in the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints. Credit where credit is due: both teams are coming off wins in Week 10, with the Saints even knocking off the Falcons.
It seems rather likely that the Falcons could end up with the 4th seed, and if the Vikings lock up that aforementioned 5th seed, we will get storylines galore at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown ATL.
The Field
The fight for the NFC’s 7th seed will be a spectacle. Of course, it is hard to predict in Week 11, but as it stands, it’s a race between the projected 3rd and 4th place finishers of the NFC North (currently Green Bay and Chicago), the projected 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers of the NFC West (currently San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle), and teams like Tampa Bay and Dallas hanging by a thread at the end of the conversation.
The current seeding has the 6-3 Packers holding the 7th seed, the 5-4 49ers 8th, the 4-5 Bears 9th, the 4-5 Rams 10th, and the 4-5 Seahawks 11th. The interesting thing to note here is that the Vikings have all of the teams mentioned on their schedule this season. They have already defeated the Packers and 49ers, fallen to the Rams, and have yet to play the Bears and Seahawks in 2024.
The Vikings also have another game remaining against the Packers, as well as the Lions (who they’ve been defeated by), the current 4th seed Cardinals, and the current 3rd seed Atlanta Falcons. The safe thing to guess is that the Vikings will see someone they’ve already played in the regular season in the postseason, and another safe thing to say is that beating a team twice is way harder than beating them just once.
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