If the Vikings 5-0 start is impressive, listen to this: They've only trailed for 3:26.

An unintentional kindness actually led to Minnesota's lone deficit to date. In Week 1 at the Giants, fullback C.J. Ham fumbled after a catch, and the New York Giants recovered the ball on the cusp of the Vikings red zone.

The Purple defense delivered a goal-line stand, and the Giants followed with a field goal for a 3-0 lead.

It didn't last long. Aaron Jones, Sr., ran around the left end for his first Vikings touchdown on the ensuing drive, establishing the offense's attacking mindset that has served as a crux in the undefeated arrival.

Kevin Seifert posted Monday morning on X a stat disclosed by the ESPN Research team – and it's a doozy: Four teams since the 1970 merger have trailed for less time in Games 1-5 of a season than Minnesota.

Four teams in more than a half-century of football. And all four advanced that season to the Super Bowl.

In 2009, New Orleans reeled off 13 consecutive wins to start its season. The Saints didn't deal with a deficit until their sixth game, when they fell massively behind to Miami, 24-3, and rallied to win 46-34.

New Orleans defeated Indianapolis 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV. They're one of two Super Bowl winners on the list.

The 1984 Dolphins had a similarly strong entrance, winning 11 in a row, and trailing for 1:04 through five contests. Their first loss happened in overtime. They were overpowered by the 49ers in Super Bowl XIX.

San Francisco is the most recent team with as dominant a start on the scoreboard as Minnesota, trailing for 1:45 over its initial five games last season. The 2023 Niners wound up dropping three straight, including a close one at the Vikings on Monday Night Football on Oct. 23, after their 5-0 start and fell short in Super Bowl LVIII to Kansas City – the second time in four years the Chiefs beat the 49ers on that stage.

The 1999 Rams – yup, the debut season of the "Greatest Show on Turf" – stalked a lead for 2:30 in their first five games, and eventually capped a magical season with a 23-16 win over Tennessee in Super Bowl XXXIV.

The graphic Seifert shared points out the team with the next-best mark also made it to the very end. In 1998, Denver began 13-0 and won Super Bowl XXXIII.

'Perfect fit' for Brian Flores' defense

A couple weeks ago, former NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, commonly referred to as "Fitzmagic," brainstormed permanent nickname options on X for Vikings outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel.

AVG? Ginks? Ginkel, Ginkel little star?

Fitzpatrick had a valid point: "He's officially too good and too impactful of a player not to have one."

That point was validated, again, in London when Van Ginkel fooled and intercepted 40-year-old future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers and returned the pass 63 yards for his second pick six of the 2024 season.

Rich Eisen, who served as NFL Network's play-by-play analyst for Minnesota's 23-17 win against the Jets across the pond, proposed Van Ginkel should get the "Dr." title because of his proclivity for "house calls."

Van Ginkel has scored five touchdowns in six NFL seasons (three on interceptions and one each via a fumble recovery and punt block). He's the first player in history with 2-plus touchdowns on interceptions and three sacks in a team's first five games of the season. He's a deserving Defensive Player of the Year choice through Week 5.

On Monday, Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune outlined how Van Ginkel's playmaking stems from his thinking.

When [Vikings Defensive Coordinator] Brian Flores is scouting defensive players before the draft each year, one of the most important things he wants to find out about them is their learning style.

When the Dolphins met with Andrew Van Ginkel before the 2019 draft, Flores, then the head coach, learned the linebacker was a conceptual thinker, capable of seeing the big themes behind the facts he learned in a classroom and adding his own ideas about how a defensive strategy could develop.

"A lot of information is not too much for 'Gink,'" Flores said in an interview last month. "Whereas for some guys, it feels like you can overload them, it just feels like he's never overloaded."

It's simple to attribute Van Ginkel's latest end-zone visit to physical skills. After all, the play presented a quick hip turn, excellent hand-eye coordination, balance and speed – but it relied on mental processing.

On the third-and-6 heard round the world, Van Ginkel was one of seven players crouched in a two- or three-point stance on the line of scrimmage, shrewdly disguising what amounted to a six-man pressure.

Van Ginkel said he was keying Jets guard Alijah Vera-Tucker. When the lineman stepped to protect the gap Van Ginkel initially looked like he was going to rush, "Gink" flew back at 45 degrees into coverage. He dropped smack-dab into a hot zone – the area Rodgers identified as attackable in order to foil the blitz.

Elite athleticism? Yes. But an even greater makeup between the ears.

Van Ginkel's astute recognition of Vera-Tucker's movement and Rodgers' intent put him on track to react and become the fifth player to outsmart and return an INT for points off the four-time MVP quarterback.

The pick-six might have seemed like a gift, given how rarely Rodgers has given it to defensive players during his career. The Vikings, though, have seen Van Ginkel do it in training camp, practice and twice now in games. At this point, linebacker Jonathan Greenard said, "I don't even get excited."

Van Ginkel is the first linebacker since Alec Ogletree in 2018 with 2-plus interceptions returned for a touchdown in the same season. Derrick Brooks, for what it's worth, set the LB record with three in 2002.

Check out Goessling's full writeup here.

Justin Jefferson origin story debuts

Production crews can't get enough of transcendent Vikings star Justin Jefferson.

After being featured in the Netflix sports docuseries Receiver, which premiered this past summer, "Jets" is the focus of the latest episode of the NFL Films documentary series A Football Life: Origins. The show airs at 7 p.m. (CT) Tuesday on NFL Network and will be available for streaming on NFL+ starting Friday.