Playoffs? To that famous question, the Vikings answer, ‘Not yet’

Vikings defenders have quite the professor for their 2024 Introduction to Playoff Football course: He was part of 15 Patriots teams that played a total of 34 playoff games, including 23 in his 11 years on the coaching staff. He went to the conference championship game his last eight years in New England, coached in five Super Bowls and touched the Lombardi Trophy in his most recent playoff game after his defense held Sean McVay’s Rams offense to three points in Super Bowl LIII.

“When we get there,” Brian Flores said Thursday, “I’ve got a little playoff curriculum.”

The Vikings’ defensive coordinator has only previewed it for players since the team clinched a playoff spot last Sunday, maintaining the blinkered focus that has become the core principle of an unexpected run to contention. When the Vikings prepare for their first playoff game, Flores will share what his experience taught him about “how to really deal with the intensity, the pressure, the emotions, the stress, all of it. It kind of gets elevated to the umpteenth degree in that setting.”

There are high stakes for the Vikings in a closing regular-season stretch against three possible playoff opponents, even if nothing can match the harrowing pressure of an abrupt playoff exit. But the team’s finishing stretch, beginning with Sunday’s trip to Seattle, could conclude with the Vikings securing home-field advantage if they can do what they’ve been preaching all season: appreciating their chance without straying from a focus on maximizing it.

The Vikings’ 2024 season feels like a moment in time, with a roster full of players on one-year contracts pressing toward the fourth season with 13 or more wins in franchise history. Oddsmakers set an over-under of 7½ wins for the 2024 Vikings; if they win their final three games, they’d double that total, while matching the franchise record for victories in a season and likely securing home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs for the first time since 1998.

NFL seasons of this type always seem particularly precious in nature; the magnitude of opportunity before a 12-2 team is matched only by the coldness of how quickly it can all end. For these Vikings, both of those factors are compounded. A Super Bowl trip would be the first by the franchise since the final days of the Gerald Ford administration. An abrupt playoff exit would send 20 of the team’s key contributors into free agency, cleaning out their lockers without knowing if they will ever return to them.

A coaching staff with plenty of Super Bowl experience — Flores with the Patriots, coach Kevin O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips with the Rams — is doing its best to impart wisdom about how players can handle what’s coming. In his locker room speech after the Bears game Monday night, a day after the Vikings clinched a playoff spot, O’Connell said, “There’s a lot of championship football out in front of this team, but we’ve got to go earn it. Make sure you guys enjoy this; enjoy every second of this journey, because it’s special, and where we’re going is special.”

Flores said he’s told players, “Be present. Be in the moment,” adding, “It’s always going to be the game they’ve been playing since they were little kids, and to make it bigger than that, normally that’s where guys go wrong.”

The Vikings’ win over the Bears on Monday night will be their last game against a team with a losing record. They will try to win in Seattle on Sunday for the first time since 2006, before matchups with the Packers and Lions that could have a major say in both the NFC North standings and the NFC playoff field.

The games provide an early taste of postseason football, before the real thing begins in mid-January. This week, the Vikings coaches and veteran players repeated the message that the right way to savor the moment is by devoting even more attention to preparing for it.

“The best way to do it is finish what we got to finish, because we know exactly what’s in front of us,” cornerback Shaq Griffin said. “There are things that we can’t really change right now, because we’re not there yet. So we tend not to worry about it. When younger guys see us do that, they’re trying to buy in.”

Griffin said rookie Dwight McGlothern recently invited the defensive backs to his house to watch a Monday night game. “Most rookies don’t do that, and then, most vets don’t pull up,” Griffin said.

As players departed at the end of the night, Griffin stayed back to talk with some of the Vikings’ young defensive backs. “I feel like the best thing about it is, they actually take the chance to listen,” he said. “That can go in one end and then out the other. But a lot of guys buy into things.”

The Vikings’ defensive back group has the most playoff experience of any on the roster; Stephon Gilmore, Harrison Smith, Griffin and Byron Murphy Jr. have played in 20 combined postseason games. But the composition of the Vikings’ roster means most position groups have at least one veteran who’s been through a playoff run and can share what he’s learned.

“[It’s about] being that much more locked in for each other, and having that sense of urgency,” said running back Aaron Jones, who played in seven playoff games with the Packers. “This is a special group; this doesn’t come around too often. Let me really be locked in when I step on this practice field, so I can be the best for the man next to me.”

Though O’Connell briefly congratulated the Vikings for clinching a playoff spot before their game Monday night, the team didn’t spend much time focusing on the achievement. Quarterback Sam Darnold said he was with several teammates Sunday night when the Packers wrapped up their 30-13 win over the Seahawks, clinching a postseason berth for the Vikings.

They celebrated, Darnold said, by talking about it “for like five minutes.”

“It’s great, first and foremost, to be able to recognize it during the night, and to be able to be with some of my teammates when that happened. That’s special in that moment,” Darnold said Monday. “But to be able to wake up today and know that we have a job to do, that’s the best part about our team.”

If the Vikings were tempted to waste any time getting caught up in their success, the NFC North’s historically competitive race would snap them out of it pretty quickly.

Green Bay, third in the division with a 10-4 record, has a better win percentage (.714) than any third-place team since the 1976 St. Louis Cardinals. If the Packers win two of their final three, the 2024 NFC North will become the first division in NFL history to have three teams with 12 wins.

The Vikings could win 14 games and still wind up on the road in the first round of the playoffs. They could win Sunday, then lose to the Packers and Lions and finish third in the division at 13-4 if Green Bay wins out.

Asked this week if he’ll talk with players about the chance to claim home-field advantage by landing the NFC’s No. 1 seed, O’Connell said he doesn’t need to have the conversation yet, since the Vikings likely “won’t have an opportunity to do that” until a Week 18 matchup with the Lions.

“I think it’ll be pretty easy for me to sequence that up,” O’Connell said. “Easier said than done as far as the schedule. I mean, we’ve got some really tough opponents down the stretch here and all teams that are very capable of competing well on into the postseason. It’s very important that we treat this game with the urgency that it deserves, because it’s a really good team on the road fighting for their playoff life. We’re going to get their best shot. We’ve got to make sure they get ours.”

The final three games, then, give the Vikings a chance to practice the principles Flores will talk to them about in the playoffs.

“I talked to our guys [this week] about our process,” Flores said. “It’s meetings, it’s walk-throughs, it’s practice. That’s our preparation. Stay with that. When you actually start to get into that playoff preparation, it’s a little bit different, obviously; a single-elimination kind of situation. The stakes are higher, pressure is at a higher level, so I think that’s when you really kind of lock in on your preparation and not getting too high, not getting too low, not getting too emotional, and just being present at the end of the day.”

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