![\"\"](\"https:\/\/vikingsterritory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/USATSI_19563765-788x444.jpg\")
Whether it’s coming from behind to overcome multiple double-digit leads against the Lions; or digging out of the ground against the Bills; or coming up with a huge forced turnover to ice away the game against the Bears, Dolphins, Bills, or Jets; or coming up with huge 4th down stops forcing a game-sealing<\/em> turnover on downs against the Cards, the Vikings have lived by the mantra that “if there is a will, then there is a way”. And they’ve figured it out that way nine times already.<\/p>\n They’ve faced dominating, physical defensive fronts like that of the Washington Commanders. And although Kirk Cousins was sacked 2 times and the team allowed 12 TFLs on the day, they found a way to settle in late in the game, put on their big boy pants, and protect the pocket when it mattered most.<\/p>\n Similarly, they faced maybe the fastest defensive unit in the entire league on Sunday in the Jets. While things got hairy for a bit in the 3rd quarter as the Vikings were only able to muster up 10 yards on 10 plays on their way to zero points, they found a way to crack the code for their first drive in the 4th quarter, which went 7 plays for 75 yards and a touchdown to Justin Jefferson.<\/p>\n They don’t give up. They don’t wave the white flag. They find a way to make it happen and remain resilient despite the ebbs and flows of a close game.<\/p>\n If I’m not mistaken, close football games dominated by fast and physical defenses — that sounds like playoff football to me, and the Vikings have been playing this brand of ball almost the entire <\/em>season. While you don’t forget the two losses against the Eagles and Cowboys, you can wipe that slate clean and build off the victories while learning from the losses as you prepare your mindset and health heading into the playoffs. <\/p>\n All of these lessons learned will help this team down the stretch as they lobby for position and carry momentum into the postseason.<\/p>\n The post The Vikings Road to 10-2 Has Them Battle-Tested for Playoff Football<\/a> appeared first on Vikings Territory<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minnesota Vikings are 10-2 this season, but it doesn’t really feel like it. Don’t get me wrong, within the confines of North Star State and extending throughout portions of the upper midwest, the purple faithful are rejoicing. But beyond that, the respect is not on par with other teams with worse records throughout the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/USATSI_19563765-788x444-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9365,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions\/9365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachbytes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"12](\"https:\/\/vikingsterritory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/USATSI_19563673-788x444.jpg\")
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