It was a jubilant New Year’s night at Lambeau Field. The Green Bay Packers had just disposed of the Minnesota Vikings by a score of 41-17. The Miller Lite was flowing like wine. NFL owner Cletus Polanski ripped off his shirt like Hulk Hogan defending the WWE championship, and fellow owner Leon Lewandowski crushed two beers like he was Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The celebration hit another gear on the field. Keisean Nixon scored on a kick return with a hole big enough for Gilbert Brown to run through. Jaire Alexander declared himself the greatest cornerback of all time with a safety peering over each shoulder. “The Pretender” by the Foo Fighters blared over the loudspeaker while Aaron Rodgers and his new girlfriend, “Madame Planet,” unsuccessfully tried to summon Satan at the 50-yard line.
The Packers had just won their Super Bowl, and it didn’t mean a damn thing to the Vikings.
Okay, so maybe that’s not entirely true. The Vikings had a faint chance at the No. 1 seed going into Sunday’s game. They also had an opportunity to hold onto the second seed in the NFC playoffs. Another belly flop against a potential playoff opponent didn’t quiet the growing mob declaring them to be a fraudulent team, but while a loss to the Packers is as pleasant as a kick to the groin, it’s not as devastating as it seems.
The Packers are a team that Vikings fans have seen before. After digging themselves into a 4-8 hole, they’ve won four-straight games to get back to .500. Their latest win sets up a winner-take-all matchup with the Detroit Lions that could determine the final playoff spot in the NFC.
At this point, Packers fans are replaying clips of Rodgers telling them to R-E-L-A-X and “run the table,” but we know how this movie ends. Green Bay will likely march into a matchup with the San Francisco 49ers, who have been as welcoming to the Packers as Freddy Krueger is to drowsy teenagers on Elm Street.
Ultimately, a win over the Vikings is gaslighting a fan base that believes that Rodgers will play forever and that Romeo Doubs is the second coming of Davante Adams. It’s the same script Minnesota has followed over the past seasons, climbing back into contention only for their season to end in a traumatizing fashion.
In 2020, that meant starting 1-5 and reaching 6-6 before losing three consecutive games to fall out of contention. In 2021, it meant getting to 7-7 and controlling their playoff destiny before losses to the Los Angeles Rams and the Packers. The Packers will soon experience this fate, but this is not Minnesota’s problem.
The Vikings should be concerned about getting themselves ready for the playoffs. At 12-4, we know Minnesota will be there, but we don’t know if they’ll be at their best.
That includes the offensive line, which suffered two major injuries in the opening moments of Sunday’s game. The Vikings hope to get Garrett Bradbury back soon. But losing his backup, Austin Schlottmann, to a fractured tibia put them in an even deeper hole. Then Brian O’Neill was carted to the locker room with a calf injury, leaving the Vikings without one of their best linemen.
That’s not ideal for an offensive line that has allowed Kirk Cousins to be hit more than any quarterback since the merger, but it also puts things into focus. Instead of risking their offensive line on a Soldier Field turf that has the same consistency as shredded wheat in a glass of milk, the Vikings need to prioritize getting back to full strength ahead of a game in the playoffs.
The same goes for a Vikings defense that has rotated starters in and out of the lineup. The plan backfired on Sunday when Josh Metellus spelled Harrison Smith and promptly allowed a long touchdown to Robert Tonyan. But risking Smith in a game that the Vikings didn’t have to win didn’t make sense.
The same could be said for countless other starters they pulled from the game once it was out of hand. Sure, the Vikings would have liked to have gone better this week, but it’s not the game that will define their season.
It’s a lesson that O’Connell may have learned during last year’s Super Bowl run with the Los Angeles Rams. Sean McVay’s team didn’t win a game in November. Nobody took them seriously as Super Bowl contenders when they got to the playoffs. The Rams destroyed the Arizona Cardinals at home in the wild-card round before going on the road and upsetting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional round.
Meanwhile, the rest of the NFC had beaten up on itself with the 49ers knocking out the third-seeded Dallas Cowboys and top-seeded Packers, leading to an NFC Championship game on their home turf. At this point, the Rams were hitting on all cylinders and parlayed it into a trip to the Super Bowl.
By that point, nobody remembered the three-straight losses the Rams suffered in November, and nobody called them frauds as Matthew Stafford raised the Lombardi Trophy.
That path is also something the Vikings could duplicate in the coming weeks. A rematch with the New York Giants appears to be in the works for wild card weekend. A win over the Niners, who struggled to defeat the Las Vegas Raiders last weekend, isn’t out of the realm of possibilities.
“But what about the Packers?”
At this point, the Packers are largely an afterthought in this process. Sure, they could make a magical run to the NFC Championship. But if the Vikings take care of their own business, they could be doing them a favor.
Let’s say the Packers go to Santa Clara and beat the 49ers. Their reward is to face a Philadelphia Eagles team that has lost two-straight games and is dealing with injuries to Jalen Hurts and Josh Sweat. If Green Bay wins, they’ll head on the road for the NFC Championship game, which could happen at U.S. Bank Stadium.
All of this is moot if the Vikings don’t clean their own house. But, when it comes to Sunday’s loss, the best approach is to tip their cap, let the Packers hang a banner, and get to work.
