When it comes to what will happen six weeks from now, Mike Zimmer said, he and his Vikings "don't really talk about playoff things or anything like that."
That's probably a good idea since it's December, and the Vikings have five wins, six losses and a 13% chance of making the playoffs, if you believe in internet playoff machines and the like.
"We're just trying to get better every week," says the coach who started 1-5 and has since gone 4-1.
The "P-word" will be harder to avoid Sunday evening if the Vikings finally reach .500 with a home win over a Jaguars team that's lost 10 straight games. If that happens, you'll see the Vikings being compared to a fairly long list of recent teams that have made the playoffs after posting a losing record through 11 games.
Fourteen teams have done that in the past 16 seasons, including 12 that were 5-6. One team has done it every year but two since 2004.
Ten of them went on to win a wild-card playoff game. Two of them — the 2009 Jets and 2016 Packers — also won a divisional playoff game before losing one step short of the Super Bowl.
NFC East teams have done it seven times since 2004, including four that qualified as division champions. Washington has done it four of those times while the Eagles have done it three times, including the past two seasons, when they turned 5-6 starts into 9-7 finishes.
The NFC East is almost certain to do it again this season since the current race looks like this:
