The Vikings’ return from their bye week on Monday, after a victory in London that got them to 5-0, came two days before they would start full preparations for their most important game of the year to date. To linebacker Jonathan Greenard, a light practice and a day of meetings was the perfect reset after a week where the narratives around the team continued to shift.
Met with tepid expectations before the 2024 season, the Vikings have been showered with praise on national talk shows after a five-game start that has them atop the NFC as the conference’s only remaining unbeaten team. “Anybody who would say they’re not listening to it or they’re not hearing it, they’re lying to you,” Greenard said. “Of course, we hear it all. It’s up to us to have that level of discernment to not listen to it, to not accept the pats on the back for the good things — because we all know, they were [previously] not talking about us. In fact, they were talking about us in a negative way. For us, continuing to keep that foot on the gas is what we’re all preaching here.”
The Vikings exuded a quiet confidence before the regular season, which began with five victories by a total of 63 points over five teams carrying a collective .552 winning percentage. If the run helped establish their bona fides to those outside the organization, it also provided backing for Kevin O’Connell’s exhortations about how good they could be to players who even wondered if they were really capable of accomplishing all the coach said was possible.
“We’re human,” Greenard said. “K.O. will have all the fire, and we’re in it; we’re listening to him, for sure. And there’s a little bit of that self-doubt, where it’s like, ‘Hey, is he really blowing smoke, or could we really be this good?’ And I feel like that’s where, once we get that out of our mind and just play with the fire and the confidence that he has in us, this staff has, the city has, man, we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”
It’s a fine line to walk, maintaining self-belief that doesn’t veer toward overconfidence on one side or doubt on the other. O’Connell tried to steer the Vikings along that path Monday, when he told players in a team meeting: “It’s perfectly fine with nobody talking about the Minnesota Vikings. I feel even more confident now that the best football team we could possibly have is in this room right now, capable of accomplishing anything we want this year. Let everybody else talk about predictions and expectations and all those things; we know everything we need is in this room, and we’re more than capable of going to do it. But mark my words: Before it’s all said and done, they’re going to be talking about the guys in this room.”
If the Vikings win on Sunday, the talk only figures to increase.
They play host to the Lions, the defending NFC North champions. Detroit has beaten the Vikings three consecutive times and, at 4-1, is the only other team in the conference with fewer than two losses. If the Vikings win, they will head into a Thursday night game with the Rams with a two-game lead in the division and two fewer losses than anyone else in the conference. If they lose, they will share the division lead with the team that sealed up the 2023 title last Dec. 24 by winning at U.S. Bank Stadium.
The state of the NFC North is another reason for the Vikings to keep their focus. All four teams in the division are at least 4-2, making this the first time since the NFL’s 2002 realignment that one division has four teams with four victories through Week 6.
