Vikings Playoff Meter Takes Shape after Week 1
The Minnesota Vikings improved their playoff math on Monday night by defeating the Chicago Bears at their building by a score of 27-24.
The Vikings’ playoff picture is starting to come into focus after Week 1. Here’s an updated look at where Minnesota’s postseason hopes stand.
Of course, the regular season still has 17 weeks around the bend, but the Vikings got the 2025 campaign started off right.
Here’s where the playoff math stands after Week 1.
Vikings Playoff Math | Entering Week 2
Minnesota’s odds of returning to the postseason climb.
PlayoffStatus.com: 62.0%
This site is pretty straightforward, factoring wins and losses foremost, followed by team strength. It details its process: “How far is your team going to proceed into the playoffs? The NFL Post Season Probabilities table presents the probabilities that your team will proceed to different playoff rounds. All future unplayed games are assumed won/lost with a probability based upon relative team strengths. Click a team name to proceed to the team playoff picture page.”
The Buccanneers and Packers lead the NFL per playoff odds, but the Vikings are right there at No. 3, with the fancy 62%.
ESPN called Minnesota the NFL’s 13th-best team after Week 1 and noted on Jordan Mason specifically: “Best newcomer performance: RB Jordan Mason. Mason gave the Vikings exactly what they needed Monday night, and what they’ve needed for much of coach Kevin O’Connell’s tenure: a running back who can bulldoze his way to yards.
“Mason rushed for 68 yards in the Vikings’ win over the Bears, 54 of which came after halftime during the team’s comeback. O’Connell said Mason’s hard running helped open up the passing lanes for quarterback J.J. McCarthy and helped lead to three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Mason is technically the backup to starter Aaron Jones Sr., but he has already made a case for being their primary rusher.”
Power Rankings Guru: 53.5%
PRG describes its formula: “How We Calculate: Our NFL playoff probabilities are calculated by averaging predictions from numberFire, ESPN and Team Rankings. The table above shows the preseason and current playoff probabilities for each team. The change in these two predictions is also shown.”
The New York Giants live at the very bottom, according to PRG, at 5.8%
PRG believes Minnesota will finish the regular season with a 10-7 record, along with a 3.3% chance of winning the Super Bowl.
Sportsbooks: 52.3%
Sportsbooks expected Minnesota to topple Chicago, and it did precisely that. Heading into Week 1, Kevin O’Connell’s team had a 50.0% chance of attending the postseason tournament. Inching to 52.3% is not a large increase, but the math would have plummeted if the Vikings had lost.
Fun fact: the Buffalo Bills have a 93.5 implied probability of visiting the playoffs, a wild stat after just one game (a win over the Baltimore Ravens).
NFL.com‘s Eric Edholm on the Vikings as the league’s 11th-best squad: “Entering the fourth quarter, J.J. McCarthy’s first start was nothing short of a nightmare. He’d completed 7 of 12 passes for 56 yards, taken three sacks and thrown a pick-six that put the Vikings in a 17-6 hole.”
“But when the Bears missed a field goal that would’ve given them a two-touchdown lead, something clicked in McCarthy — and he went nuclear. A lot of credit goes to Kevin O’Connell, who truly feels like one of the league’s best coaches. But years from now, if McCarthy ultimately hits it big in this league, people will talk about his fourth quarter in Chicago.”
Minnesota is a 3.5-point favorite to take down Atlanta on Sunday night.
“Suddenly flipping the switch in his first regular-season game, he led three brilliant TD drives, notching two scores with his arm and one with his legs, plus a two-point toss to Adam Thielen. Meanwhile, Brian Flores’ defense started getting home on pass rushes, making Caleb Williams pretty uncomfortable after halftime,” Edholm continued.
“But the night belonged to McCarthy — a Bears fan growing up — finding his way through some serious adversity.”
DVOA: 48.4%
Last week, FTNFantasy assigned Minnesota a 36.2% of reaching the postseason. Since, the Detroit Lions have lost a game, and the Vikings achieved their first win of 2025 against the Chicago Bears. Accordingly, the Lions’ playoff probability has dipped to 40.7%, which is quite mind-boggling, considering how the general public perceived Detroit in 2023 and 2024.
In short, according to DVOA, the Lions and Bears are trending down, with the Green Bay Packers and Vikings on the rise — the perk of winning out of the gate.
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