Sentimental Vikings? It's because change will come fast after this thrilling season

Harrison Phillips went to the playoffs three times as a member of the Buffalo Bills. He remembers sitting at his locker in tears after each postseason loss, stung by the finality of the moment but more so by what inevitably happens next.

He knew that in the NFL's uncompromising business cycle, the roster would never be intact again, no matter how successful the team was that season.

No team ever returns exactly as constructed.

"That's probably the hardest heartbreak for me," the Vikings nose tackle said. "You always believe in yourself that you will be on the team the following year and you'll have another chance to win the Super Bowl. But you won't be able to do it with the same group. Just the reality of the business is that not everyone will be here next year, and you want to win it with the guys that you're brothers with."

The Vikings team that just produced a stupendously entertaining and dramatic regular season is guaranteed one playoff game. That's it. Nothing more.

And when the ride is over — whether it's one game or more — that will be it for a group of players who feel so connected that they refer to their bond as "uncommon."

The roster won't look the same next season. That's a certainty, and players know it. Especially veterans who are wise to the NFL's annual churn.

In fact, it's quite likely the roster will look strikingly different in Year 2 of a blueprint that General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah labeled a "competitive rebuild."

Players offered a glimpse of sentimentality in preparing for the New York Giants by acknowledging that opportunities such as this don't come along too often. A 13-win season crammed full of tense, euphoric wins by a collection of teammates that genuinely love being together.

"Knowing that nothing is guaranteed after this season," quarterback Kirk Cousins said, "you want to not only enjoy every game left with them but every meeting, every walk-through, every practice, every cafeteria meal."

The team's core group certainly seized its second chance to prove itself, at least up to this point.

The stated goal, or edict, from the top of the organization last winter was that the Vikings would remain "super-competitive" after undergoing sweeping changes in leadership.

That was Mark Wilf's phrase on behalf of ownership: super-competitive. That meant no demolition derby with the roster, no youth movement with an eye on the future. Ownership's patience and belief in the roster and new coaching staff created a pathway to a regular season that few could have predicted, probably even internally.

The rebuild component in Adofo-Mensah's vision for a "competitive rebuild" hasn't changed, though, as he goes forward managing the complicated salary cap situation he inherited. Part of that tap dance will focus — as it usually does in the NFL — squarely on veterans whose contracts take up a sizable slice of the salary cap.

The combined 2023 cap number for Adam Thielen, Harrison Smith, Za'Darius Smith, Dalvin Cook and Eric Kendricks is slated to be $80,381,467, according to OverTheCap.com.

Untangling that web makes it impractical to think everyone will be back.

The NFL's salary cap and year-to-year volatility in the standings make taking a run-it-back approach to roster construction practically impossible. The league's parity is designed to create ebbs and flows each year. Bad teams become good. Good teams stumble and miss the playoffs.

Adofo-Mensah is new to the GM role, but his background in economics and Wall Street trading has trained him to look at situations analytically.

The Vikings record in one-score games (11-0) set an NFL record and created many thrills, but that remarkable achievement is an outlier, not a template to be duplicated.

The team won 13 games despite having a negative point differential and one of the league's worst defenses. That's almost beyond comprehension.

This team and this season have been wacky and fun and exhausting and memorable for so many reasons. It's been a hoot.

It's easy to understand why players speak so passionately about wanting to maximize this playoff moment. They feel part of something special. And they know the locker room will never look the same once the thrill ride ends.