With NFC North Clinched, Vikings Balancing Playoff Seeding, Improvement, Resting Vets

The Vikings will look to stay ahead of the 49ers for the No. 2 seed in the conference.

With their record-setting comeback victory over the Colts on Saturday, the Vikings clinched the NFC North for the first time since 2017. That's a big accomplishment. It was one of the things Kevin O'Connell established as a goal for this team back in the offseason.

"We set a goal to win this division at the very beginning of the training camp," he said after the game. "We have not talked about anything else besides winning the division. We knew how important that would be for our organization, our team. Now we've got to take this moment, (including) the things we clearly need to correct early on in this football game, but see if we can harness the energy that it takes to set a record like that and compound that moving forward to have more complete performances."

The 11-3 Vikings obviously have a lot to clean up after finding themselves in a 33-0 halftime hole against a bad Colts team. They also have a lot to be proud of and encouraged by after mounting the biggest comeback in NFL history and winning in the final seconds of overtime.

Still, O'Connell's focus this week will be on the things that caused them to fall into such a big deficit in the first place.

"What I’ve spent the majority of my time thinking about is what put us in that situation in the first place and the role that I played in that," he said on Monday. "That’s what I’ve really been spending some time on and really trying to look closely at where we’re at as a team in all three phases. Where are the potential areas of the game that we must address and improve? And then, where are the things that may have been an outlier early on in that game that we were just able to overcome?"

The Vikings have clinched a home playoff game, but there's more to play for over the final three weeks of the regular season. That includes potential records and milestones for someone like Justin Jefferson, but more importantly, playoff seeding.

Heading into Week 16, the Vikings are just barely alive when it comes to the top seed in the conference. Because of the head-to-head tiebreaker from Week 2, the 13-1 Eagles would have to lose out, and the Vikings would have to win out, for that spot to change hands. 

Eagles QB and MVP candidate Jalen Hurts is dealing with a shoulder injury and is expected to miss at least one game, which at least makes things slightly more interesting. Still, even with Gardner Minshew at quarterback, it seems quite unlikely that the Eagles lose out against the Cowboys, Saints, and Giants, to say nothing of the Vikings' chances to win out.

The more relevant race is the one for the No. 2 seed. The Vikings sit a game ahead of the 10-4 49ers, who have won seven in a row. Even with Brock Purdy at QB, San Francisco looks incredibly dangerous with its elite skill position weapons, great coaching, and perhaps the league's best defense. If the 49ers can make up a game on the Vikings over the next three weeks, they'd have the tiebreaker due to conference record.

Here's a look at the final three games for both teams:

• 11-3 Vikings: vs. Giants (8-5-1), at Packers (5-8 pre-MNF), at Bears (3-11)
• 10-4 49ers: vs. Commanders (7-6-1), at Raiders (6-8), vs. Cardinals (4-10)

With how the 49ers are playing, the Vikings may need to win out to keep the second seed (although SF will be facing a desperate Commanders team this weekend). The benefit of that would be that if the Vikings and 49ers both win in the wild card round, they'd face off in the divisional round, and whoever has the 2 seed would host the game.

"There’s a lot to still actively chase, from a preparation standpoint to understanding what the result may mean for potential seeding," O'Connell said. "Maybe if you’re able to get through that first round, the opportunity to maybe host another playoff game. I think our fans, as great as they’ve been all season, we should try to be hunting playing as many home games as we possibly can, just 'cause not only they deserve it, but it also is an incredible home atmosphere and advantage for us when it comes time to try to start winning one game a week by any means necessary."

Starting with this week's game against the Giants, the Vikings will be looking to clean things up and continue improving, while also staying ahead of the 49ers.

But, with that said, there are a lot of things to consider now that the division has been wrapped up and the Vikings can drop no lower than the No. 3 seed in the NFC. O'Connell acknowledged that they'll be keeping an eye on the snap counts of some veteran players over the next three games, particularly those who have been dealing with nicks and bruises. Linebacker Eric Kendricks, for example, came out of Saturday's game with a hip contusion. Za'Darius Smith, Harrison Smith, and Adam Thielen are a few other vets who have dealt with injuries of late.

In addition to trying to be as healthy as possible for the postseason, limiting some reps for vets would allow the Vikings to give valuable playing time to young players like LB Brian Asamoah and others.

"We’re still on the hunt for improvement and continuing to get better as a team," O'Connell said. "To do that, you do have to play football across the board, but that does not mean that snap counts don’t need to be monitored. We’ll take a look at each individual situation to make sure — the priority is having a healthy team and the best possible version of our team, when we do get to the playoffs, now that we know we’ll at least be there.

"We’ll take a look at the whole thing. We’ll make sure the guys that have bumps and bruises and have played a lot of snaps — we do have some of those guys — that we’re finding ways to not only give them some time here and there, but also the development of players that maybe we’re excited to see continue to grow behind those guys."

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