The Vikings defeated the Packers 27:25 and remained in first place

The Vikings players returned to the locker room several minutes before Sam Darnold on Sunday night and waited for the quarterback to return before celebrating their 27-25 victory over the Packers. Darnold, who rushed for a career-high 377 yards and finished with his second three-touchdown game of the year against Green Bay, had to do a postgame interview with Fox announcer Tom Brady, who was most recently a guest at US Bank Stadium the Patriots’ quarterback in Super Bowl LII.

“We felt like we waited a long time and there was no way I was going to stop that conversation,” coach Kevin O’Connell said.

It gave outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard time to hatch a plan: When Darnold arrived, his teammates greeted him in the middle of a crowd and followed Greenard’s instructions to douse the quarterback with water bottles. Defensive tackle Harrison Phillips picked Darnold up in the middle of the huddle as rain splattered the suits of co-owners Zygi and Mark Wilf.

“I didn’t know what to do with my hands in that situation, Ricky Bobby style,” Darnold said, referring to Will Ferrell’s character in the film “Talladega Nights.” “Funny moment, man, being hugged like that by your teammates.”

Pick any detail of the scene that you like: the congratulations from Brady, the six touchdowns in two games against the Packers, the celebration staged by an edge rusher the same week Darnold died in March switched to the Vikings, switched to the Vikings. Would any of these have seemed plausible in March, July or even September? The uncertainty over Darnold was the reason for many of the lukewarm predictions for the Vikings, who oddsmakers gave an over-under ratio of 6½ wins; Using the tepid public reaction as a backdrop, O’Connell urged players to focus only on what they could control and turned the football cliché “1-0 this week” into a rallying cry.

The team, which signed 14 unrestricted free agents this spring, celebrated for the 14th time this season on Sunday night, closing its regular-season home game with its first win over the Packers (11-5) since 2017 and its seventh victory US Bank from the stadium. The cumulative effect of all of these 1-0 weeks is this: If the Vikings (14-2) win again next Sunday in Detroit, they will win 15 games in a season and secure the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage in the playoffs for the first time since 1998.

As incredible as it may seem to most outside the Vikings organization, the team’s accomplishments are now irrefutable. The Vikings reduced the battle for the NFC’s top spot to a one-game showdown, likely scheduled for national broadcast on NBC Sunday night, as they attempt to reclaim the division title from the Lions team that defeated them last year in the US Bank Stadium had taken the division title.