The NFL made its postseason 6.3% easier to reach when owners expanded the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams last month.
How big a boost is 6.3%?
Ask Jim Caldwell. Or Lovie Smith. Or Jon Gruden. Or Marty Schottenheimer. Or Mike Tice.
Especially Mike Tice.
From 2001 to '17, these five men were fired after seasons in which they would have made the playoffs as the seventh seed in the NFC.
From 2003 to '05, Tice's Vikings finished the regular season seventh, sixth and seventh in the NFC. But instead of three straight playoff appearances, Tice got sucker-punched out of the postseason by Nate Poole on the last play of the 2003 season and fired in the locker room within minutes of beating the Bears in the 2005 season finale.
Bummer for Tice. Booyah for Mike Zimmer, who certainly can use a 6.3% leg up as he tries to turn a retooled roster into the first Vikings outfit to post consecutive playoff seasons since 2009.
Based on 30 seasons of data, Zim will need 8.7 wins to secure the seventh seed. Let's round up to 9.
A week ago, NFL.com published a power ranking that listed the Vikings eighth in the NFC. Let's bump the Purple up to seventh in this man's Ridiculously-Too-Early-But-Hey-We're-All-Bored NFC Power Ranking.
Here's the gumption behind this power guesstimate:
