Vikings staring down rare chance to bury Packers
How many times have the Vikings had the opportunity to destroy the Green Bay Packers' playoff hopes? In the 30 years of having Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers from 1992 to 2022, the Packers have missed the playoffs just eight times.
The Vikings can take credit for keeping the Packers out of the playoffs in three of those eight seasons, and they can do again with a win at Lambeau Field on Sunday.
The Packers will be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the Vikings coupled with the Lions beating the Bears in Detroit. The Lions are favored by 6 points against a banged up Bears team that has 3 wins all season.
And since the Lions and Bears play at noon, there's a chance (if the Lions win) that Green Bay will literally be in a must-win situation by the time their game against Minnesota starts at 3:25 p.m.
Winning the division was Minnesota's No. 1 goal. Beating the Packers at Lambeau to kill their playoff hopes would be a feather in the cap and the 2022 Vikings could join the teams from 1992, 1999 and 2017 as the only teams in the Favre-Rodgers era to be solely responsible for their mortal enemy's death.
The 1992 Packers finished 9-7 and lost the tiebreaker to Washington for the last wild card spot. Guess who beat the Packers in Week 17? It was the Vikings in a 27-7 rout. Favre was intercepted three times and Sean Salisbury threw touchdowns to tight ends Steve Jordan and Mike Tice.
The Vikings' 24-20 win over the Packers in Week 15 of the 1999 season dropped Green Bay to 7-7 and they finished 8-8, losing tiebreakers to the Lions and Cowboys to miss the playoffs. That game came down to the wire, with Robert Griffith intercepting Brett Favre in the end zone on the final play of the game.
The 2017 Packers started 4-1 and then Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone when Anthony Barr slammed him to the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium. Green Bay melted without Rodgers and finished 7-9, so the Vikings can take some credit for killing their season.
Three decades of Favre and Rodgers and Minnesota is staring down a rare opportunity to bury their rival in the frozen tundra for the rest of the winter.
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Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.