Vikings earn a first-round playoff bye for the first time since 2009

With their win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings locked up the NFC’s number two seed in the upcoming postseason.

With a 2-2 record after the first four weeks of the 2017 NFL season, it is hard to imagine many saw the Minnesota Vikings emerging as one of the top two teams in the NFC at the end of the year. But after defeating the Chicago Bears 23-10 on Sunday, the Vikings clinched the second seed in the NFC playoffs and a bye in the first round of the postseason.

For Minnesota, it will be the first time the team has begun the playoffs with a first-round bye since 2009. The last three times the Vikings entered the postseason as the NFC’s second seed or higher, the team has reached the conference championship each year.

Will this be the season Minnesota finally gets over the hump and finds a way to make it all the way to the Super Bowl?

With their victory on Sunday, the Vikings also captured their 13th win of the year. Minnesota’s 13 regular season victories are the second-most in team history and the highest amount since 1998.

Minnesota Vikings

With their first-round bye, the Vikings will get a chance to rest and allow players to heal from some of their injuries next week. This extra rest will be vital for some of Minnesota’s most important members of their roster who have battling injuries recently including center Pat Elflein, tight end Kyle Rudolph, and cornerback Xavier Rhodes.

As for who the Vikings could be facing in their first matchup of the 2017 playoffs, well it will likely be one of three teams. Depending on how the first round of the postseason goes down next weekend, Minnesota will host a divisional round playoff game in U.S. Bank Stadium against either the Carolina Panthers, Los Angles Rams, or New Orleans Saints.

The Vikings faced all three of these teams during the regular season and the Panthers were the only one of the three to get a win over Minnesota.

Next: Vikings' ups and downs from Week 17 win

But that game was not played in front of a deafening crowd at U.S. Bank Stadium.