At least the Minnesota Vikings will make some history next week. They’ll be the first 14-win wild-card playoff team in NFL history.
There can be complaints about the NFL overemphasizing its divisions, which leads to oddities like the home team having four fewer wins than its road opponent in the wild-card round. But the Vikings knew the stakes for Sunday night’s historic game against the Detroit Lions. The winner is 15-2 and gets the No. 1 seed in the NFC. The other breaks the 1999 Tennessee Titans’ record of 13 wins for a wild-card team, and falls to the fifth seed.