A few years ago, I suggested an NFL scenario where the quest for total parity would take over and every team would finish at .500, or maybe one game above or below it. Time has passed, but my concept still has a chance to come close to that, this year. Take this season.

The Vikings have three games left, including a Christmas Eve game at home against the Detroit Lions, then a New Year’s Eve game at home against the Green Bay Packers, and winding up with a Jan. 7 game at Detroit against the Lions again. There is every chance in the world the Vikings will be underdogs in all three of those games, which means at 7-7, there may be precious little chance for the Vikings to finish above .500.

The Lions were my pick to win the North Division of the NFC since last summer. I really like Jared Goff at quarterback, and I really like their rushing attack, and I also really like their swift and creative defense.

The Vikings have a decent chance to win this Sunday in the Christmas Eve game because it’s in Minneapolis, but the Lions sputtered through a couple of bad games, and they seem to be over that now. I thought the Detroit-Denver game would be a tough one, but the Lions snapped back into what I perceived as championship form and battered Russell Wilson and the Broncos 42-17 Saturday – the same day the Vikings were doing a face-plant in Cincinnati and losing 27-24 on a last-play field goal in overtime.

The Vikings went with Nick Mullens at quarterback rather than Joshua Dobbs, and in this season of backups and backups to backups, the Bengals had a one-time Vikings candidate named Jake Browning, and he picked the Vikings defense to pieces. For my money, Mullens played reasonably well, and has a nice passing touch, if a bit soft, but he is not a scrambler, which Dobbs is, and I believe Dobbs would have won that game for the Vikings, given the opportunity.

This weekend, I don’t think either Dobbs or Mullens can outrank Goff, and the Vikings running backs can’t match David Montgomery. Just ask the Broncos, who couldn’t prevent Goff from hurling five touchdown passes, some of which were aided by the defense needing to account for the threat of Montgomery breaking off a long run.

The Lions are 10-4, the Vikings 7-7, and the Packers, who finish with the Buccaneers, the Panthers and the Bears, are 6-8. If the Lions whip the Vikings – twice, even – second place in the division will hinge on the Packers-Vikings game, when Jordan Love will challenge the Vikings musical chair rotation at quarterback. Elsewhere in the NFC, Philadelphia and Dallas are both locks to make the playoffs at 10-3 and 10-4, and West winner San Francisco is the other cinch, taking its 10-3 mark to Seattle Monday night. Seattle is 6-7 and the LA Rams are 7-7 as they head for a showdown.

The South doesn’t have a favorite, with New Orleans and Tampa Bay both 7-7 and tied for first place. In the AFC, Baltimore and Miami are riding high, at 10-3 and 10-4, and Kansas City might still be a betting favorite at 9-5, but that’s the same record Cleveland has challenging Baltimore, and Buffalo (8-6), and Houston and Indianapolis (both 8-6) to confront Jacksonville’s 9-5 in the AFC South.

I enjoyed watching Case Keenum getting his first start at quarterback in three years and guiding Houston to a 19-16 victory in Nashville Sunday night. Keenum is the guy who came in to replace Teddy Bridgewater and led the Vikings to an 11-3 season. We’re not done with football yet, going into the Bowl season, and we also have the NHL stretched out and hustling to try to make ends meet midway through the season.

The Wild are making serious dents, and the sharing in goal between Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury is leading the injury-plagued Wild toward the upper reaches. We have to get Krill Kaprizov going, and elite defense tandem Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon back into the lineup and up to speed. The Vancouver Canucks are a surprise in the NHL, rising up as a potential Stanley Cup threat and playing tough team defense every night. The Canucks are duplicating the late-season charge of balance and strength that the Seattle Kraken showed last season, and they have enough to torment the more high-end skilled players of Colorado and Edmonton.

If the Wild can get Kaprizov rolling, and if Matt Boldy keeps up his current scoring pace, it will be Vancouver and Seattle that they will have to overcome for a playoff run.

While the word of the day in the NFL is “backup,” who can make any sense out of the college football scene, where star quarterbacks are bailing out through the transfer portals right and left, leaving behind their teams who are just about to go into a big bowl game and now will be doing so without their star quarterbacks in many cases.

We need some semblance of order, maybe the curtailment of all such transfer freedom.   UMD basketball wins The UMD men’s basketball team has a lot of momentum and should make a run at the NSIC title, behind the deadly outside shooting of Drew Blair, who has perfected the art of stopping for that step-back outside jump shot and drills them with amazing frequency that he can’t be stopped.

The UMD women, meanwhile, have put together an impressive array of fill-in players from last season’s fantastic post-season run, and it was a shock to my senses to watch the Bulldogs dismember Winona State in a close men’s game and then in a surprisingly lopsided women’s game, which was set up as the late feature attraction.

The Bulldog women have a strong, balanced attack, and they are led by the feisty spark plug from Cromwell-Wright – Taya Hakamaki. Coach Mandy Pearson uses Hakamaki as a do-everything utility player, and at 5-foot-8 (or 5-9, as the program suggests) she is the primary ball-handler taking the ball up the court and represents a constant threat from outside or midrange, plus she can drive and spin free for inside layups