As I write this, the Minnesota Vikings are 14-2 and about to play the 14-2 Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football. At stake, the No. 1 seed in the NFC. The loser drops all the way down to the No. 5 seed. And that is amazing in many ways.

First off, a 14-3 team is going to be a fifth seed. Teams with worse records will be seeded higher. That does not happen very often, if ever.

Second, this has been an astounding season for the Vikes.

Do you remember back to the pre-season days? I do.

The Vikings had lost their quarterback, Kirk Cousins, to Atlanta. Their top draft pick quarterback was out for the season. No one really knew who the quarterback for the Vikings was even going to be for sure. The defense was full of players that, to be honest, I had never heard of before. Van Ginkel, Cashman, Greenard and Metellus. Who are these guys, I wondered. Gone was the Vikings top pass rusher. Thankfully at least Harrison Smith was still around.

Yes, we still had the best receiver in the league in Justin Jefferson. But somebody has to throw the ball to him. And somebody has to stop the other team from scoring. And our star tight end, TJ Hockensen, was out.

And our new kicker was another unknown. Some guy named Will Reichard. Would he be any good? Our running back was an older player those dreaded Packers didn’t even want anymore.

I was prepared for a mediocre season at best. A rebuilding year, of sorts. Hopefully we could win the two games against the Packers, so we could call that a successful season.

But, I was also going to watch every game, just like I have been doing since 1968, when I first moved to Minnesota. I had been a Denver Broncos fan, and a San Diego Chargers fan before that, but I quickly changed to loving Fran Tarkenton and the Purple People Eaters, and hating the Green Bay Packers.

One of my Bethany College roommates was a big Vikings fan, the other one was from Green Bay and loved the Pack. They wanted to know which team I was for. I went purple.

I have reported before in this column that I became more than a casual fan. I went to a lot of games and was lucky to have season tickets for a dozen years or so, even when I lived a two-and-a-half-hour drive away from the stadium.

I was at the last Vikings game at Met Stadium in Bloomington, the first Vikings regular season game at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and the last Vikings game at the Metrodome.

And, I was at the first regular season game at the U.S. Bank Stadium, when the Vikes beat those dang Packers. At that game I even ran into our state senator at the time, Julie Rosen. She was instrumental in getting U.S. Bank Stadium built.

“The Bank,” as it is often called, is sure impressive. And being there in person for a game is quite the experience. You know what I mean, if you have been there. It has given new meaning to the phrase “Home-Field Advantage.”

And, if the Vikings win on Sunday night, they will have that home-field advantage in the playoffs. If they don’t win, well, they will have to go on the road.

But, the way the Vikings are playing this year and winning close games, I would think that all the other teams in the league would not be looking forward to playing them, whether they are the top seed or not, whether it is in Minnesota or not.

They find a way to win. And they are fun and exciting to watch, although they sure keep my blood pressure up.

Now they just have to go to Detroit and tame the Lions on national TV.

I will do my part on Sunday and into the post season. I will have on my lucky Vikings socks, shirts, jerseys and slippers and drinking a beer in a Vikings mug and be surrounded by Vikings paraphernalia, some of which I got at the Relay for Life Silent Auction this past summer, and some of which is 50 years old.

I am sure many of you will be doing the same. Skol!