Minnesota needs all the help it can get to make the playoffs, and so far so good as both the Washington Football Team and the New Orleans Saints lost on Sunday night and Monday night.
The Saints losing to the Dolphins Monday night was big because entering Week 17 the Vikings (7-8) hold the tiebreaker over the Falcons (7-8) and Saints (7-8) for eighth place in the NFC playoff picture.
The seventh and final seed in the playoff race is currently owned by the Philadelphia Eagles (8-7), who play at Washington this week before hosting Dallas in Week 18. And because the Vikings own the tiebreaker over the Falcons and Saints, the focus this week is solely on the Vikings and Eagles.
Unfortunately, the Vikings have to travel to Lambeau Field to face Aaron Rodgers and the NFC-leading Packers in a game that will likely be played in bone-chilling temps. According to the National Weather Service, wind chill values in the Upper Midwest this coming weekend will likely be the coldest of the winter so far.
Seriously, it could be brutal – especially since it’s a 7:20 p.m. kickoff for Sunday Night Football. All of the main medium range models meteorologists use – the American, Canadian and European models – show temps at kickoff in the single digits and a subzero wind chill of -10F to -20F. We’ll have to wait and see it gets that cold, but it’s definitely going to be frigid.
“Single digits to around 10 degrees,” says meteorologist Sven Sundgaard, “with wind chills in the -5 to -15 range.”
The coldest game the Vikings have ever played at Lambeau was Dec. 23, 2017, when the temperature at kickoff was 10 degrees. The Vikings won that game 16-0.
This actually could wind up being one of the coldest games ever at Lambeau. The coldest games in Lambeau history include the 1967 “Ice Bowl” against the Cowboys when the temperature at kickoff was -13F with wind chill values between -35F and -48F. People literally died from exposure to the cold during that game.
The second-coldest wind chill reading in Lambeau history was -24F during the 2008 NFC title game against the Giants, which was Brett Favre’s last game as a Packer. In 1993, the wind chill dropped to -20F during a Packers-Raiders game.
Those three aforementioned games are among the 10 coldest games in NFL history, which oh by the way includes a trio of Vikings games including the 2017 tragedy against the Seahawks when Blair Walsh missed a 26-yard field goal, leaving fans who endured the -6F air temp and -25F wind chill even more numb.
Entering this week, the Vikings have a 13% chance to make the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight. The odds increase to 65% with a win over the Packers coupled with an Eagles loss to WFT.
The Falcons don’t really matter at this point because the Vikings own the tiebreaker based on a better conference record, so this really is all about the Vikings and Eagles. The 49ers could play a role in Minnesota’s playoff fate, but only if they lose out and the Vikings win out.
Again, it’s all about the Vikings beating the Packers. And they’ll have to do it in icy conditions.
