RandBall: The agonizing wait for a Monday night Vikings playoff game

By now, dear Vikings fan, you have probably talked yourself into and out of 37 different iterations of how the Vikings’ playoff game against the Rams will go on Monday night.

There’s the one where you believe Sam Darnold’s clunker last week was a mirage and that the 14-3 Vikings will roll. There’s the version that’s the exact opposite. There’s hope swirling with belief, battling with present concerns and past scars.

They are going to win, you convince yourself, only to think a moment later that the Vikings will lose in painful fashion.

You have time for all this — agonizing time — because the Vikings vs. Rams game is the last of six on wild card weekend, reserved for the Monday night primetime slot. On paper, it looked to be the best matchup of all the games.

The first five revealed that to be a low bar to clear, as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

We already know who the Vikings would play next, even though they haven’t even played at all yet.

Thanks to the only upset in the only competitive game Saturday or Sunday, with Washington squeezing out a 23-20 victory over a self-sabotaging Tampa Bay squad, Minnesota would travel to Philadelphia for an afternoon game Sunday — not Detroit, as Lions coach Dan Campbell had predicted while shaking Kevin O’Connell’s had after the regular-season finale.

We might have a chance to write more of those “Philly fans are mean” stories later in the week. There was no shortage of terrible behavior from the NFC title game seven years ago, and an incident during the Eagles’ 22-10 win over the Packers on Sunday only added to their reputation.

But first, the Vikings must win as slight favorites in a neutral site game in Arizona. They must do it against one of only two teams they have lost to all season, a game that is a bad matchup stylistically given the Rams’ ability to rush the passer on defense and attack with a short passing game on offense.

And before that, you must continue waiting, most likely through an entire workday after already enduring the weekend. You’ll probably change your mind a few more times about what to expect along the way.

We know everything about this game except for what is going to actually happen.

Can it just be Monday night already?