If the season ended today, the Vikings would be in the playoffs. Hey, great idea. Let's just end it now! Ah, it doesn't work that way. The Vikings, at 6-6-1, have a narrow half-game lead over three slumping 6-7 teams for the final wild-card spot.
The Vikings' Week 2 tie at Green Bay remains a source of frustration for plenty of fans, but it might be enough to make a difference in getting in or staying home. And one thing the tie definitely did was make potential Vikings playoff scenarios pretty easy to figure out.
Only one other NFC team has a tie — Green Bay, of course! — and the Vikings hold the tiebreaker edge with the Packers. Unless another team ties in the final three weeks, the Vikings won't have to worry about complicated tiebreakers.
With the help of FiveThirtyEight's prediction model, I laid out all the Vikings playoff scenarios for the rest of the season. Read the full report on the blog.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
