1. Can Vikings Still Make Playoffs

Minnesota Vikings Playoff Picture. Where are the Vikings going in the playoff? The Vikings playoff picture table presents the probabilities that the Vikings will win each playoff spot. All future unplayed games are assumed won/lost with a probability based upon relative team strengths. How the Minnesota Vikings can still make the playoffs. Believe it or not, the Minnesota Vikings are not out of the playoff hunt yet. If the Vikings can manage to run the table and defeat, in order, Tampa Bay, Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit, they are guaranteed to make the playoffs at 10-6. That's a massive 'if,' of course.

The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Chicago Bears in a rather ugly affair on Monday Night Football, coming away with a 19-13 victory. The win marks the third in a row for Minnesota, bringing them to 4-5. It's hard to believe they've ended up here after a 1-5 start that suggested the Kirk Cousins extension was a massive error and the notable Mike Zimmer defense is finally collapsing.

Yes, the Vikings can still make the playoffsbut they NEED to do these 3 things Admittedly, whether you’re an eternal optimist or are pessimistic to the extreme at one point this season you’ve already written off the Minnesota Vikings for 2021 playoff contention. How could you not have after an 0-3 start where the team looked lifeless? With a current record now at 7-7, the Vikings chances at the postseason seem to be hanging on by a single thread.Yet, they still have a chance.There are a couple of scenarios in which Minnesota.

We were all a bit too early to circle the wagons on Minnesota, it would seem. Dalvin Cook has found his stride and become the engine that drives the entire offense, averaging 155 yards on the ground per game over the Vikings' last three weeks. Cousins has reverted back to the slightly-above average QB the Vikings believed him to be when they offered him the aforementioned extension. He's thrown six touchdowns and only one pick over the course of the winning streak after starting the year throwing six picks in three games. To tie it all together, the defense has awoken, keeping each of their last three opponents to 22 points or fewer. That is admittedly not impressive when it's the Bears or the Lions, but they did so to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in Week 8, which is worth noting.

Minnesota has found a winning formula. Rely on Cook and the play-action pass to produce on offense while counting on the defense to keep the score close and capitalize on any mistakes made by the opponent. As long as Cook stays healthy (a rather big if, considering his lengthy injury history), there's little reason to believe they can't keep this level of play up. Could they somehow, some way, keep it up to the point where they're a playoff team?

It will be rather tough. They split their two games with Green Bay this season, but the Packers are 7-2 and unlikely to lose three of their last seven games when only two of those are coming against teams with a winning record. That means the Vikings will be competing for a wild card spot with the division title likely out of reach.

Gallery: 11 NFL teams that should be on the hunt for a new QB in 2021 (SMG)

Those three NFC wild card spots will be hotly contested, though. The Saints just lost Drew Brees for a few weeks, but he will presumably return this season. Therefore, we can count on one of the Saints or Bucs to claim one wild card spot. The NFC West is the best division in football with three teams currently sitting at 6-3. Someone has to win that division, so the Vikings will be battling with the other two NFC West teams for the final two wild card spots. Unfortunately for Minnesota, they lost to Seattle already this year, so they'll lose a tiebreaker if the Seahawks' downward slide continues and they miss out on the NFC West title.

Assuming the Vikings win out and go 11-5, they need at least one of the Seahawks, Cardinals, and Rams to lose two of their last seven games. Alternatively, the Vikings will be in the hunt if the Saints lose three games down the stretch or the Bucs lose two. They would then need to win the tiebreaker in any of these scenarios.

It remains a possibility that one of the above-mentioned teams loses the majority of their games over the remainder of the season and the Vikings can get into the wild card round with no tiebreaker needed. Anything can happen. But the most likely path remains going undefeated for the rest of the year and crossing their fingers that the final spot will come down to a tiebreaker between themselves and another 11-5 team.

As it stands right now, the Vikings' playoff hopes are out of their control. They need to take care of their business and win out, which isn't a gargantuan task. They have two tough games remaining on the schedule against the Bucs and Saints, which could be huge in tiebreaker scenarios. Otherwise, Minnesota plays Dallas, Jacksonville, Carolina, Chicago, and Detroit, which are all very winnable games. If they can do that, all they need is a few stumbles from an NFC West or South team. Improbable? Perhaps. Impossible? Not at all. The Vikings, despite a horrid start, are still very much in the playoff race.

A couple of years ago, then-Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp was asked about the statistical progress his defense had made. 'I've said this before -- stats are for losers,' said Muschamp. Most stats are just an after-the-fact way to explain outcomes, he explained. They can misplace both credit and blame. And he's right; you have to consider all variables. And while numbers alone say there's no way the Minnesota Vikings should be 0-3 right now, the tape isn't far behind. It just depends which half of the game you're watching.

The Vikings may be, over a three-game stretch, the weirdest team in NFL history. That's because they may be the best 0-3 team in NFL history. Better than the 1992 San Diego Chargers, who started 0-4, went 11-1 from then on and cracked the playoffs, or the absurd 1995 Detroit Lions, who started 0-3, climbed to 3-3, dropped to 3-6, then won out to make the playoffs. Only five teams since the merger have started 0-3 and made the playoffs, but the Vikings could be No. 6. Here's why:

Everything we know about football says the Vikings should be 3-0. In the first half of games so far, they've outscored teams a combined 54-7. Don't just dismiss this as some random stat: 'But it's a 60-minute game!' It's not. At least not when you've been this good early in games. In NFL history, six other teams have outscored the opposition like this to start the first three games (over 50 points, allowed 7 or fewer). Those teams went a combined 18-0.. The Vikings have posted an almost impossible 0-3 mark.

And this is where Vikings fans may want to reach for the motion sickness bag in the seatback pocket. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the chances of the Vikings losing all three games is at about 3,800-to-1. The weakest win probability they've had at halftime is a 17-7 lead over San Diego -- and it was still 84.9 percent. Up 20-0 at halftime of the Detroit game, they were at 97.1 percent.

So that's the pain, what are the solutions? How can the Vikings, a team dominating into the locker room, maintain form into the second half and not continue to be outscored at a rate of 64-6 (the current ratio through three games)? Here are key issues on both sides of the ball:

Offense

Minnesota is blessed with the league's best running back, but Adrian Peterson has been terrible in the second half, where he's run for just over a quarter of his 296 total yards. That's an amazing stat, actually. In recent years we've learned that a lot of rushing totals are piled up late. You pass to gain leads, you run to hold onto them. But the Vikings have grown frustrated rushing the ball with the lead, and have gone away from Peterson too often.

Consider the Detroit loss. Minnesota went into the third quarter with a 20-0 lead. During that quarter, they ran the ball twice and threw the ball seven times. Four of Donovan McNabb's throws fell incomplete, stopping the clock, and one ended in a sack. By the time the quarter was over, the lead was 20-10, and Detroit was driving. To be fair, the tape shows that in the second half of games, teams are loading up to stop the run, begging McNabb to throw. But even then, Minnesota is being stubborn. Peterson cracked off a 43-yard run in the first quarter against an attacking, stacked front. And he faces stacked fronts in every quarter -- he's the league's best back. Putting aside the idea of keeping the clock moving, in some ways, Peterson becomes more dangerous against loaded fronts and blitzes. If he finds a seam, he could be gone.

The biggest issue: Minnesota is last in the league in second-half time of possession. How is that possible? The team is going into the locker room with a 16-point lead on average, and getting out-possessed 2-to-1 while the opponent scrambles to catch up.

Bottom line: if you're going to be stubborn with a running back, why not be with Peterson?

Defense

As pal Bill Barnwell pointed out, the pass rush has shifted from half to half. The Vikings have sacked opposing quarterbacks on 10.3 percent of first-half dropbacks, an elite figure, but have sacks on just three of their 75 second-half dropbacks, a disastrous 4 percent rate. It's the equivalent of going from the league's best pass-rush to the worst in the course of 15 minutes. The result is that the Vikings are giving up a league-high 21.3 points in the second half.

A look at the tape, however, shows that it may not just be the rush. In the Detroit game, Matthew Stafford worked exclusively out of the shotgun in the second half, baiting the pass rush. It worked, because it wasn't a lack of rush that killed Minnesota, but a lack of dropping back. As Minnesota came after Stafford, he abused them with shorter passes -- tight end Brandon Pettigrew, running back Jahvid Best and slot receiver Titus Young caught 13 second-half passes, compared to six total from Calvin Johnson and Nate Burleson.

Detroit didn't simply flick on the Megatron, they used their share of the clock and picked Minnesota apart out of a shotgun and short drops.

So far this season the Vikings have been the ultimate in mixed signals. They've prepared for games like NASA scientists, but can't even assemble a white board for the 15-minute time where adjustments are needed.

On both sides of the ball, the Vikings seem to be falling into the trap of maintaining aggression when merely playing sound football would do. It can hardly be called 'winding the clock' when the hand-offs are going to Peterson, and you can drop your linebackers when the D-line features Kevin Williams and Jared Allen.

Over the next four weeks, the Vikings get Kansas City, Arizona and Carolina, three games they can win. An upset of Green Bay could put them on the path to rival those other 'great' 0-3 teams. No shot? Tell that to the team that was drilling undefeated Detroit just last week.

Stats may be for losers. But for the Vikings, it's really only half the story.

Can Vikings Still Make Playoffs

Chris Sprow is a senior editor for ESPN The Magazine and Insider. He reports and edits on many sports and works year-round with Mel Kiper on NFL draft coverage. He also oversees ESPN's Rumor Central and has been a regular guest on ESPN networks in that role. You can find his ESPN archives here and on Twitter here.