NFL playoff picture: It’s the Vikings vs. the Lions for the No. 1 seed in Week 18

It has all come down to this: Vikings at Lions on “Sunday Night Football.” The last game of the NFL regular season. Winner earns the NFC North title and gets the No. 1 seed, a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the playoffs. Loser gets a wild card and the No. 5 seed and has to go on the road in the playoffs.

Detroit matched the Vikings' 14-2 record with a 40-34 win over the San Francisco 49ers on Monday night. The result of that game was largely meaningless to Sunday’s stakes. Lions coach Dan Campbell said he thought about resting some starters on his banged-up team, but ultimately kept his foot on the gas, as is his habit.

So Vikings fans got to enjoy being in first place for about 28 hours.

The Vikings have won nine games in a row. The Lions have won 13 of their past 14, losing to the AFC’s No. 2 seed, the Buffalo Bills, 48-42 on Dec. 15. This is being touted as the first regular-season game between teams with 13-plus wins in NFL history.

Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell has turned the football cliché about “going 1-0 this week” into a rallying cry. Go 1-0 this week and the Vikings will be the NFC’s No. 1 seed for the first time since 1998.

Here’s everything you need to know about the NFL playoffs:

The Vikings play the Lions at Ford Field in Detroit at 7:20 p.m. Central time. The game will be broadcast on NBC.

There are seven qualifiers from each conference: four division winners and three wild cards. The top seed in each conference gets a first-round bye and home-field advantage. The matchups in the wild-card round are 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5.

The top four seeds go to division winners, ranked in order of their records. The wild-card teams are then seeded 5-7 based on their records.

In the NFC, the Vikings, Lions, Eagles (13-3, East champion, No. 2 seed), Rams (10-6, West champion), Packers (11-5, wild card) and Commanders (11-5, wild card) are in. There’s one spot remaining, for the NFC South champion, either the Buccaneers (9-7) or the Falcons (8-8).

In the AFC, the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs (15-1) have claimed the West title, No. 1 seed, first-round bye and home-field advantage. Also in are the Bills (13-3, East champion, No. 2 seed), Texans (9-7, South champion, No. 4 seed), Ravens (11-5), Chargers (10-6, West champion) and Steelers (10-6). The Broncos (9-7), Dolphins (8-8) and Bengals (8-8) remain in contention for the last berth in the AFC.

If the Vikings lose Sunday and are the No. 5 seed, they would be the first 14-win wild-card team in NFL history. They would play at the No. 4 seed, which will either be the NFC West champion Rams (10-6) or the yet-to-be-determined NFC South champ.

The Rams are currently in third place in the conference, but would fall to the No. 4 seed if they lose to Seattle at home (3:25 p.m.) and the Bucs win Sunday.

The Vikings did not play Tampa Bay this season, but they lost to the Rams 30-20 on Oct. 24 and beat the Falcons 42-21 on Dec. 8.

Super Bowl LIX is at 5:30 p.m. Central time on Feb. 9 in New Orleans at the Caesars Superdome. The game will be broadcast by Fox.