The Vikings could win 14 games and still wind up on the road in the first round of the playoffs. They could win Sunday, then lose to the Packers and Lions and finish third in the division at 13-4 if Green Bay wins out.
Asked this week if he’ll talk with players about the chance to claim home-field advantage by landing the NFC’s No. 1 seed, O’Connell said he doesn’t need to have the conversation yet, since the Vikings likely “won’t have an opportunity to do that” until a Week 18 matchup with the Lions.
“I think it’ll be pretty easy for me to sequence that up,” O’Connell said. “Easier said than done as far as the schedule. I mean, we’ve got some really tough opponents down the stretch here and all teams that are very capable of competing well on into the postseason. It’s very important that we treat this game with the urgency that it deserves, because it’s a really good team on the road fighting for their playoff life. We’re going to get their best shot. We’ve got to make sure they get ours.”
The final three games, then, give the Vikings a chance to practice the principles Flores will talk to them about in the playoffs.
“I talked to our guys [this week] about our process,” Flores said. “It’s meetings, it’s walk-throughs, it’s practice. That’s our preparation. Stay with that. When you actually start to get into that playoff preparation, it’s a little bit different, obviously; a single-elimination kind of situation. The stakes are higher, pressure is at a higher level, so I think that’s when you really kind of lock in on your preparation and not getting too high, not getting too low, not getting too emotional, and just being present at the end of the day.”