Where do the Vikings stand in the muddled middle of the NFC?

Minnesota is 0.5 games out of the 7-seed with eight weeks to go

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By Sam Ekstrom

If making the playoffs is the name of the game, the Vikings took a massive step forward with their 27-20 win at Los Angeles on Sunday.

The team’s playoff odds, per FiveThirtyEight’s advanced modeling, now sit at 42 percent, and a win against Green Bay this coming Sunday pushes them over 60 percent.

As you’d expect from most head coaches, Mike Zimmer wasn’t eager to start talking about the playoffs with almost half the season remaining.

“We’ve been fighting so much and so hard to try to get back to get some wins,” he said Monday. “I don’t think when you’re 3-5 that you think about those things. We did mention that, you know, there’s been a lot of times we’ve got on a roll and continue to get better and better. We’ve just got to figure out some ways to win games. So hopefully we’ll continue to do that. Hopefully we get some more wins and we can start talking about that a little bit more, I think.”

The reality is that the Vikings have been given a gift with the parity-filled middle of the NFC. After a dramatic week of hot-seat talk, Vikings fans can legitimately simulate a path where they land the 6- or 7-seed.