There's never been a regular season game quite like the one that's going to take place on Sunday night at Ford Field in Detroit.
It'll be the 14-2 Vikings against the 14-2 Lions in a historic battle of juggernauts. The combined 28 wins are the most in NFL history for a regular season game. There's never been a non-playoff matchup between two teams with even 13 wins apiece, much less 14 (which is possible largely due to the schedule expanding to 17 games a few years ago). In fact, this is just the fourth game in league history between two teams who are at least ten games above .500, according to the Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN's Kevin Seifert).
The most recent example is a 2005 game between the 12-2 Seahawks and the 13-1 Colts. Before that, you have to go back to 1983, when the 12-2 Redskins beat the 12-2 Cowboys. Before that? It hadn't happened since 1926, when the 12-1-1 Frankford Yellow Jackets beat the 11-1-1 Chicago Bears by a score of 7-6. That was just the seventh season of the NFL.
Not only are the records unprecedented, the stakes couldn't be much higher for this game. The winner gets the NFC North title and the No. 1 seed in the conference, which comes with a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the next two rounds. The loser, because of the way the NFL's playoff format works, finishes second in the division and drops to the No. 5 seed, which means opening the postseason on the road — and then, if they advance, likely playing at the winner of this game or the Eagles in the divisional round.
Yes, a 14-win team will have to go on the road in the first round. That's never happened before. The 1999 Titans, who finished 13-3, will no longer be the best wild card team ever.
There's a legitimate possibility, based on the difference in playoff paths, that this Vikings-Lions game could determine who appears in the Super Bowl.
"You couldn't write a better scenario," Lions head coach Dan Campbell said after his team beat the 49ers on Monday night. "You couldn't come up with this. The fact that both teams are sitting at 14-2 and it's for the division and the 1 seed. It just doesn't get any better than this. This is fairy tale stuff. It's as good as it gets."
Five more days until showtime.
