Disagree here. Vikings certainly aren't the best team in the NFL, and probably not Top 5 material either, but I don't see them being this year's equivalent of the 2015 Falcons. Their defense is far better than Atlanta's was, and perhaps more importantly, they've gotten the toughest part of their schedule out of the way and are still 5-2. They only play 3 teams that currently have winning records the rest of the way. NFC North plays the AFC South this year, so they have, without question, the easiest interconference slate. On top of that, the NFC race sets up extremely favorably for the Vikings. The only non division leaders in the NFC with winning records are Green Bay and the three NFC East teams behind Dallas. Should the Packers overtake Minnesota, the Vikings will benefit from their wild card competition taking each other out. I would be shocked at this point to see Minnesota miss the playoffs.

Well, that's one way to look at it. This is how I see it : their offense is TERRIBLE. Their 5 wins were against pretty bad teams. It didn't seem like it early on, but full on basketcase mode Panthers and the Packers at their worst (barely beating the Pack in MIN), are not the quality wins one would like to see. The others are the meh Titans, the Giants when they were at their absolute worst, and the Brock Texans. Not a good pedigree TBH.

The Packers will absolutely overtake Minnesota. Do you realize that Minnesota has just about the worst offense in the league? It's not even Sam Bradford's fault to be honest, that line has come to complete pieces. Rest of their 2016 schedule :

Lions (coin flip)
at Redskins (L)
Cardinals (heating up, so probably an L here as well)
AT Lions (L)
Cowboys (L)
at Jaguars (W)
Colts (coin flip)
at Packers (huge L)
Bears (LOL, what did we just see?. Just to be nice, I'll pencil this as a W)

So maybe 4 wins left. 9-7. Their defense is getting tired of being put on the field immediately following 3 and outs, morale is out the window, the coach is publicly calling them out, etc. GB is getting it together and will take the NFC North.

By the way, of COURSE I didn't say Atlanta's defense was better than Minnesota's, that makes utterly zero sense. What I meant was, the recent Atlanta team that started out red hot and faded early, like the Vikings did this year, only I think the Vikings are less impressive.

Atlanta : spectacular offense, lower-tier defense.
Minnesota : top-10 defense, but not as good as Seattle/Arizona/Denver/Philly, and garbage-tier offense.

Their overachieving defense through the first 5 games was giving their offense ludicrously good field position against troubled teams. Getting early leads simply fed their defense more, as teams were desperate to pass on them. That's all out the window now though.

Vikings O line injuries :

Matt Kalil, Andre Smith (both out for the entire season!), and now Alex Boone for a game or two.

They are done. 9-7 may be optimistic.

More food for thought, and this should dismiss outright the idea that the Vikings are going anywhere :

Jay Cutler, coming off of injury and with basically zero practice time, recorded a rating of 100.5, taking only 1 sack, averaging over 8 YPA, and connecting on about 64% of his passes. The Viking's only 'strength' certainly didn't do the job there. How about defending the run? Nope, they allowed 153 yards to Howard, at a stunning 5.9 per attempt. They couldn't stop it even when selling out to stop it. Against CHICAGO'S O-line.

Minnesota's lead back barely cracked 40 yards in return, while Bradford was sacked 5 times, and recorded a 20.9 QBR.

And Minnesota was even lucky that it wasn't worse. The Bears fumbled zero times. The Vikings fumbled twice, and the ball bounced right for them not to lose either.

Wait, Jordan Howard had 153 yards? Jeez, I benched pretty much every player that could of helped me win this last week oh well

I agree. Minnesota is this year's 2015 Falcons. They had a decent run and everyone started freaking out. The reality is their QB is Sam BADford (there's a reason he has that name) and they have no run game. Their defense is good and should continue to be good, but it won't be able to carry the team in the playoffs (they aren't anything like 2013-2014 Seahawks D or 2015 Broncos D).

If they make the playoffs I predict a 1st round exit. Green Bay, Dallas, Philly, Atlanta, and Seattle can all beat this team convincingly. 

The way I see it, that could very well be just a mulligan more than anything. Interdivisional games are very much a crapshoot, and you'll almost always find a really good team play absolutely pathetically against a divisional rival at least once a year. New England played like shit in Miami last year in a game that cost them homefield advantage. Pittsburgh blew a game against the 5 win Ravens last year that almost cost them a trip to the playoffs (and, incidentially, they only made it because the 10 win Jets played miserably against the already eliminated Bills in a game that could've clinched a playoff spot for NY). Denver lost to San Diego a few weeks back. Seattle is legally required to get fucked by the Rams at least once per year.

I could go on, but the point is don't put too much stock in a divisional loss, even if it's to an awful team like the Bears. The Pats got shut out by the Bills at home this year (admittedly with a third string QB, but still played well below the level they had in any of the game prior). Divisional games have a habit of being extremely unpredictable due to the familiarity between the two teams.

Just for fun, I'll make my own Vikings predictions though:

Lions: Coin flip (Agree here)
at Redskins: Coin flip (Washington is entirely unpredictable) 
Cardinals: Win (Cards are 2-2-1 in last five games, with wins against 49ers and Jets. I wouldn't say they're heating up just yet.)
AT Lions: Loss...probably (this is the Lions)
Cowboys: Loss
at Jaguars: Win
Colts: Win (Dude, the Colts suck. Especially their D. They've only held 2 opponents this season below 25 points)
at Packers: Loss
Bears: Win. It's at home, and it's a revenge game.

Let's say they go 1-1 in coin flip games. That's 5 wins. 10-6 will definitely be good enough for at least a wild card. Realistically, 9-7 will probably be good enough for a wild card too. Redskins, Giants, and Eagles (the wild card competition at this point) all still have to play each other, and still have to play Dallas one more time. The Redskins and Eagles also still both have to play Green Bay, while the Giants have to go to Pittsburgh. The NFC East is going to be a bloodbath over the last quarter or so of the season. I don't think there's any way two of those teams finish the season with less than 7 losses.

Incidentially, I'm not claiming that you said that Atlanta's defense was better (or as good as) Minnesota's defense. What I'm saying is that Minnesota has a stellar defense that makes the two cases less comparable. Minnesota's issue is the weaker side of their team (offense) is in a slump, so they at least have their defense to rely on. Atlanta's offense hit the breaks, however, meaning they had no strong unit to rely upon. The Vikings' excellent D (best in the league by points allowed) can keep them in games and probably let them steal at least one or two that they might not deserve.

I feel ya. I had a 20 point lead against the guy I played against going into Monday and he beat me because of Howard. Freaking ridiculous lol

Welp big game for the Titans next week. Got Philip Rivers and the Chargers to deal with. Sigh I hope Rivers at least uses lube before tearing the Titans trash secondary a new asshole. Hopefully our front 4 can rattle him enough to make mistakes.

Norv Turner just quit the Vikings OC job LOL

Damn the vikings are imploding. They're 5-2 and at the top of their division so I don't understand how they're breaking down this fast. Who even thought they would be in this postion at the beginning of the season when Bridgewater and Peterson got hurt. They need to get their heads out of their asses.