Follow us:

Regular season in five words or fewer: Close game or blowout

For the most part, it's been one or the other every week this season for the Vikings. They've won an NFL-record 11 games by one score, including eight via fourth-quarter comebacks. All four of their losses have come by double-digit deficits and an average of 22.3 points. As a result, they've been outscored by opponents 414-395. "When we lose," receiver Justin Jefferson said, "we lose bad. We've got to fix that and find ways to be better throughout the whole game."

The Vikings are like The Alliance of Magicians headed by G.O.B. in Arrested Development, posing for a goofy group photo while holding a sign that reads "We Demand To Be Taken Seriously." Twelve wins and a division title cannot be ignored, but it's hard to credibly view the Vikes as Super Bowl contenders when their season is littered with gnarly blowout losses like the 41-17 takedown we witnessed on Sunday at Lambeau Field. Minnesota suffered meltdowns in every phase of the game and generally looked like the clearly inferior team despite the records of the parties involved. The doubts will follow this team into the postseason.

They were terrible in losing to the Packers, which makes the word fraud once again pop up when discussing them. They have a negative point differential, which is bad.

Unbelievable that a 12-4 team with a division title in hand has been outscored by 19 points on the season. Minnesota would have to win by 50 Sunday to avoid owning the worst differential by a team with at least 12 victories since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.

The No. 3 seed isn't a bad place for the Vikings. If they're No. 3, they face the sixth-seeded Giants on wild-card weekend. If the Vikings move up to No. 2 they'd get the No. 7 seed, which is probably going to be the Packers. And we saw on Sunday how that matchup turned out.