Vikings' road to the playoffs just got more treacherous

The modern athlete pans for motivation on social media like a starving prospector. Want to find doubters, haters, skeptics, critics and pundits (often referred to in locker rooms as "pundints'')? Check Twitter. Anyone can insult a player in far fewer than 280 characters.

This column, then, provides a public service. No need to wade through Russian bots and various creative spellings of the contraction "you're'' to find this specific challenge:

The 2017 Vikings haven't accomplished anything yet. Not the front office, not the quarterback, the coaching staff or the defense. Not the franchise as a whole, which hasn't won a playoff game since Brett Favre appeared in the Metrodome in the Old Things About To Collapse Bowl.

This team is 6-2 and leads the NFC North by two games. Any semblance of competence over the next five weeks should earn a division title and a winnable playoff matchup, if there is such a thing for a franchise that has won one postseason game since 2004.

What this year's team has to prove is that it can perform competently against strong competition because to date the Vikings' record is far more impressive than their pedigree.

They haven't beaten a team that currently has a winning record since opening night, or since Sam Bradford's knee began to ache.

Current quarterback Case Keenum is 0-1 against teams with winning records. The teams he has beaten are a combined 17-32. He has outdueled Jameis Winston, Mitch Trubisky, Brett Hundley, Joe Flacco and DeShone Kizer — two projects, a backup and two slumping veterans. Keenum, like his team, is winning but untested.

November and December may again prove dangerous for the Vikings. Sunday, they'll play at FedEx Field to begin a stretch of five games against contending teams and accomplished quarterbacks. Let the vetting begin, with an ominous matchup in a bothersome place.

It was at RFK Stadium where Darrin Nelson dropped a pass that may have taken the Vikings to a Super Bowl, and it was in the urban sprawl of Washington, D.C., where Randy Moss walked off FedEx Field and Mike Tice sent Matt Birk to deliver vigilante justice until Tice heard that the Vikings had backed into the playoffs. Where Adrian Peterson injured his knee, and pre-surgery Robert Griffin III sprinted to a decisive 76-yard touchdown, becoming the most popular athlete in the capital since Walter Johnson.

FedEx Field was also where Joe Webb led the Vikings to a victory in 2011 that left them in position to draft Matt Kalil instead of Andrew Luck. If not a house of horrors, FedEx is more an ampitheater of annoyances, and this year's Washington team is exactly the kind of sneaky-good contender that could start a Vikings spiral.

Washington is 4-4. The teams it has lost to are a combined 25-8. The teams it has beaten were 15-10 at the time. Washington has played the NFL's toughest schedule, its opponents having won 61 percent of their games.

Injuries to the offensive line led to the Vikings' collapse last year, beginning with a rotation of tackles in Philadelphia after the bye whose play made Bradford look like a speed bag.

These are the circumstances that try the souls of Vikings fans, but there is upside to this matchup and the month ahead:

If the Vikings prove themselves worthy over the next five weeks, they'll play at least one home game in U.S. Bank Stadium in January.