In Week 18, the Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions will play one of the biggest regular season games in recent NFL history, as the two teams will meet at Ford Field to determine the NFC North champion and the #1 overall seed in the NFC playoffs.

The Vikings have reeled off nine consecutive victories to push their record to 14-2 in a season where very little was expected of Kevin O’Connell’s crew. The Lions have lost just once September (with the results of their Monday Night Football contest against San Francisco pending) and already have a victory over Minnesota this season.

The winner of this game will wind up with the top seed in the NFC and a very important bye week heading into the 2024 NFL playoffs. The loser, on the other hand, will drop all the way to the fifth seed and will have to go on the road, most likely to either Tampa Bay or Atlanta, on Super Wild Card Weekend.

The National Football League, in its infinite wisdom, has made this game the final game of the 2024 regular season, slotting it into the Sunday Night Football spot on NBC. That means the game will kick off at right around 7:20 PM on Sunday, 5 January, after the rest of the Saturday and Sunday slate is in the books.

We will have a ton of coverage of this week’s game right here at The Daily Norseman, so make sure you’re checking back frequently to keep yourself up to date on all of the latest developments.