Xavier Rhodes stood on a chair in the locker room, organizing the Vikings' secondary. Andrew Sendejo yelled for a camera. He forgot what that means in 2017.
Suddenly a bank of mini-cams was training lenses on a photographer taking a picture of players taking phone selfies. The Vikings' revolution will be recorded redundantly, frame-by-frame.
With a 34-7 victory over Cincinnati at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday, the Vikings have staged a coup in the NFC North, which has historically served as a party vehicle for the Green Bay Packers. The Vikings have won the division two of the past three seasons and wrapped up this title with two games remaining while playing their backup quarterback.
"I don't know if it's exceeding my expectations because I expect to win every game," Mike Zimmer said. "But it's pretty darn good."
Sendejo put it more succinctly, using his best Jon Snow impersonation to scream, "Kings of The North!"
Having ensured that their first playoff game will be played at home, the Vikings quickly adopted winning the NFC's No. 1 seed as their goal. "Absolutely," receiver Adam Thielen said. "Now that we're in, we've got to keep winning. We've got to win next week. We've got that No. 1 seed in our sights."
Let us not waste time on the Bengals. Let us instead speak of professional football — specifically The Frostbite Bowl scheduled for Minneapolis in February.
What began as a hope and grew into a possibility is moving somewhere in the vicinity of becoming a probability. The Vikings may be the team most likely to represent the loaded NFC in the Super Bowl.