Vikings big question: Are the close victories a bug or a feature?

Since the beginning of the 2021 season, the Vikings have played 27 regular-season games. Twenty-one of them — 13 wins, eight losses — have been decided by one score.

This year, the Vikings are 7-0 in one-score games, having pulled off double-digit fourth-quarter comebacks to stun crowds in Washington and Buffalo the past two weeks. Those close victories, and consequently, the lack of lopsided wins, are frequently cited by those who are unsure they're as good as their 8-1 record suggests.

Close games, the argument goes, are subject to randomness, where the bounce of a ball or a split-section action can have an outsize impact on the final result. Over time, a team that wins a slew of close games one season isn't statistically likely to do so every year.

Teams have to try, though; it's why the Vikings hold a "situational masters" meeting each week, and why other teams employ a similar approach to help players understand how to handle chaotic end-of-game situations. In 2022, it's simply a way of doing business when close finishes and fourth-quarter comebacks are more common than ever.

This season, 68 games have been decided by one touchdown or less — a record through 10 weeks of the regular season, according to the NFL. When the 49ers rallied to beat the Chargers on Sunday night, their win was the 47th this season where a team rallied to win or tie after trailing in the fourth quarter; the figure tied the 2016 season for the most in NFL history through 10 weeks of a season.

"I just know when we prepare for the opponents we're playing every week, you just feel like there's impactful players and really good coaching that challenges offenses and defensive schemes," Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said. "It's hard to say if that's directly an impact on why the games are so close. I just know the margin of error is so thin between good plays and catastrophically bad plays, to be honest with you, that can change the entire outcome of games. ...

"It's hard to just completely distance yourself from an opponent and have every play go your way for four quarters. It just seems, although that's what we strive for and try to have our own perfect level of execution, I think just the way the game is nowadays, it's hard to come by, and you've just got to be ready for it to be close in the end."

So is it sustainable? Have the Vikings, with their emphasis on situational football in meetings and practices, successfully "hacked" close games? That's hard to say after half a season, and if the Vikings keep up this kind of winning percentage in close games over multiple seasons, they'll defy historical precedent in the process.

But in a year where close games and comebacks are more common than ever, the fact the Vikings are involved in so many one-score games seems less like a sign of weakness and more a fact of life in the NFL. The question of whether future teams can sustain these results isn't really the 2022 Vikings' concern. Their job now is to see if they can become the team, whether by merit, luck or some combination of the two, that can win all their close ones this year. Their experience in such moments seems to make O'Connell believe they can.

"I think some of those games early on in the season, and as we've grown as a football team, where we have been able to get it done, either just a deficit in the fourth quarter, or maybe it is a 10-point deficit, [we were] relying on different phases of our football team and understanding how it all comes together in those critical moments," O'Connell said Monday. "I think we play off of each other well, and I think our guys really respond to each other well. It's a testament to their experience in those situations this year, and also for our ability to have our best playmakers and guys be at their best when they're required."