Good morning, Vikings fans: If the NFL season were over as of this morning, your team would have the top seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs for the first time since 1998.
(It doesn’t end today, of course, which is why we’ll permit just a second for you to celebrate before moving on. But things could be much clearer a week from now.)
After the Philadelphia Eagles lost their second game of the season (and first to a NFC opponent), the Vikings vaulted from the second spot to the top perch in the conference, by virtue of a tiebreaker with the Eagles. Both teams are 10-2, and have 8-1 records in the NFC. They’re both undefeated against common opponents (the Bears and Redskins), but the combined winning percentage of the teams the Vikings have defeated is .467, whereas the Eagles’ strength of victory is just .375. That, for the moment, puts the Vikings ahead of Philadelphia.
But only for the moment — which brings us to why Week 14 is so important.
After the Vikings play the Panthers and the Eagles play the Rams on Sunday, the NFC’s two best teams will have four common opponents. Following Week 14, the only game either team has left against one of their four common opponents (again: the Redskins, Bears, Panthers and Rams) comes in Week 17, when the Vikings play host to the Bears. Which means the results of next Sunday’s games could play a pivotal part in establishing a pecking order between the two teams.
At the moment, the Vikings are 2-0 against their common opponents with the Eagles, while the Eagles are 4-0, having beaten the Redskins twice already, as well as the Bears and Panthers once. A win against the Panthers, coupled with an Eagles loss to the Rams, would give the Vikings a 4-0 record against the two teams’ common opponents, dropping the Eagles to 4-1. It would also give Philadelphia two conference losses, with the Vikings still at one and holding onto a sizable edge in strength of victory. At that point, the Vikings would be 11-2, with a one-game lead on the Eagles and everything pointing in their favor.
Now let’s say the Vikings lose to the Panthers next week, and the Eagles beat the Rams. They’d be behind Philadelphia both in the conference games tiebreaker and the common opponents tiebreaker (3-1 to 5-0). Even if the Eagles lost another conference game, bringing the Vikings level with them in the first tiebreaker between the two teams, the Vikings couldn’t catch the Eagles in the common opponents tiebreaker.
Here's the NFL playoff picture
Essentially, the two most important games the Vikings will play the rest of this year, in terms of home-field advantage, are on Sunday against the Panthers and Dec. 31 against the Bears. Vikings fans should also be rooting hard for an Eagles loss to the Rams, since it’s the last chance for Philadelphia to finish with less than a perfect record in the common opponents tiebreaker.
http://www.startribune.com/week-14-could...461818773/

What a joke. Blantant and if he did that out in the real world, he'd be in jail. And some of the jock-sniffing national media is trying to spin it like he shouldn't be suspended this morning. Unreal. 

https://www.seniorbowl.com/watch-list-profiles.php
https://www.seniorbowl.com/accepted-invites.php

Oh yeah! Sweet!  B)

Looks like   the  sky rats  are  gonna   beat   the Eagles  hmm

https://twitter.com/christomasson/status...7035258880

dayum..

ATLANTA — The Vikings entered Sunday’s game ranked No. 1 in the NFL in third-down defense, so it wasn’t a surprise that they were once again solid. But after surrendering just one conversion in 10 Atlanta tries and limiting wide receiver Julio Jones to two catches, Minnesota qualified as downright superb.
The Falcons (7-5) were smoking hot before the Vikings (10-2) showed up at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, converting 65.9 percent of their third downs in a three-game winning streak in which they averaged 31.7 points.
Against the Vikings, Atlanta converted its first third down of the game, a 16-yard pass from 2016 NFL MVP Matt Ryan to reserve tight end Levine Toilolo on third-and-6 from the Atlanta 37-yard line.
And that was the end of that.
Atlanta whiffed on its final nine third-down conversion attempts one week after converting 11 of 14 in a 34-20 victory over Tampa Bay. The Vikings entered the game allowing a league-low 28.5 percent conversion rate; Sunday’s work dropped that to 27.2.
http://www.twincities.com/2017/12/03/on-...nted-them/