Vikings finish off highest-scoring season in history

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- These are tricky, unfamiliar times for the Minnesota Vikings.

	Robert Smith says the Vikings are "one of the best teams that has ever been put together."

They are stuck between one of the best regular seasons in NFL history and a postseason in which they will have to overcome their own history of failure.

They are welcoming the weekend off they earned with their 15-1 record, and are eager for some rest. But they are wary of taking it too easy, of losing the edge that drove them to this point.

Still, the Vikings know theirs is a predicament every other team in the league would love to have right now. They plan to take full advantage of it, too.

"It's just like in a bye week -- you have to maintain it," tight end Hunter Goodwin said Sunday. "I mean, our practices aren't going to be exactly easy. Coach (Dennis) Green's giving us a couple days off, which are needed. But like he was telling us today, realize when you come back here on Wednesday, you're not coming back to a vacation."

The NFC Central champions capped their dominating regular season with a record-setting 26-16 victory at Tennessee on Saturday. The Vikings matched the 1984 San Francisco 49ers and 1985 Chicago Bears for the most regular season wins in NFL history, and also set a new season scoring mark with 556 points.

They set a bunch of other records, too, the most notable by kicker Gary Anderson. He made all four of his kicks -- three field goals and an extra point -- to become the first kicker ever to complete a perfect season. Anderson is 94-for-94, and his 164 points are the most ever scored by a kicker.

But those records, and the many others the Vikings have set this season, will be inconsequential without three more victories and the first Super Bowl title since the franchise was founded in 1961.

"We wanted all this a great deal," said running back Robert Smith, whose 1,187 yards are third-most in team history even though he missed 2½ games with a knee injury. "(We're) one of the best teams that has ever been put together. But at the same time, it's not going to mean a thing if we don't get to the big show and win it."

The Vikings couldn't do that in their four Super Bowl trips during the 1970s, the last a 32-14 loss to Oakland after the 1976 season. Minnesota also will be trying to live up to the legacy of the NFL's other two 15-win teams; the '84 49ers and '85 Bears both went on to win Super Bowl titles.

Green, who won his first playoff game last season and is 1-5 in the postseason since taking over in 1992, has given the team Monday and Tuesday off. They'll practice Wednesday through Friday before taking the weekend off.

On Jan. 4, it's back to work preparing for the first game, either against the San Francisco-Green Bay winner or against Arizona if the Cardinals beat Dallas this weekend.

Although this is the first time the Vikings have had a first-round bye under Green -- they are the first dome team to earn home-field advantage throughout the playoffs -- they have been tremendous around their regular-season bye weeks during Green's tenure.

Minnesota is 14-2 in games surrounding bye weeks over the past seven seasons.

"I think the main thing is you just want to make sure you don't lose your sharpness. You don't want to have a dull mind," Green said. "You're not playing next weekend, so all of a sudden you're not thinking about anything. ... As long as we make good use of that time, then I think it's something that we really think will be to our advantage."

And the Vikings go into the bye week knowing they have a tremendous advantage following their weekend off.

They were 8-0 at the Metrodome this season for the first time since 1989, winning those games by an average of nearly 24 points. Only one home game was decided by fewer than two touchdowns, the 31-24 victory over New Orleans on Nov. 8.

The Vikings have remained surprisingly low-key all season. Only one accomplishment will really mean anything to this group: a victory in Miami on Jan. 31.

"We look at the Atlanta Falcons last week after they clinched a (first-round) bye or whatever," cornerback Jimmy Hitchcock said. "They were jumping up and down in celebration. Look at this team. We are 15-1. I don't think you see any satisfied faces. You see people who understand the goal from day one, and that's to win it all."