Arizona at Minnesota


Breaking down the Cardinals and Vikings


Focal Point: Moss vs. Williams


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Scouting report


Vikes in no mood to rest


ESPN experts' playoff picks

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- In this season of big plays and big breaks for the Minnesota Vikings, here's what passes for bad luck.

	Cris Carter's absence at practice Monday is one of the few things that's gone wrong in Minnesota.

The winter storm that hit the Midwest over the weekend prevented Cris Carter and Leroy Hoard, with 22 touchdowns between them this season, from getting back in time for practice Monday.

And coach Dennis Green didn't even miss them.

"The bottom line," Green said, "is that we went through what everybody in America went through, which is that if you're traveling you deal with the elements, so we did. We had an excellent day (Monday), and I didn't really pay too much attention to who was there or not."

That's about how the season has gone for the Vikings (15-1), whose considerable talent has been fortified by heavy doses of good luck from the start.

Even when they were sitting at home last weekend enjoying their first-round playoff bye, the Vikings watched as their road to the Super Bowl opened like a stretch of deserted highway.

First, Arizona upset Dallas on Saturday, giving the Vikings the NFC's lowest-seeded team for their first game instead of San Francisco or Green Bay. Then, the 49ers stunned the Packers on Sunday, eliminating Minnesota's fiercest rival and the possibility of having to beat Green Bay a third time.

"Fortuitous break? What we did is we went out and won 15 games, and we got a bye," cornerback Jimmy Hitchcock said. "Whatever happens on our bye week, we have no control over that. Whoever we're going to play next, we're going to have to play the best of those teams eventually anyway. We've just got a road that's different than others."

Easier, too. But that's usually the way it is for the team with the NFL's best record.

Although the Cardinals (10-7) dominated the Cowboys on the road Saturday for their first postseason victory since 1947, they needed to win their last three regular-season games in the waning seconds just to get into the playoffs. Minnesota is favored by 14½ points in Sunday's game.

Still, the Cardinals have one of the league's best young quarterbacks in Jake Plummer, a talented receiving tandem in Rob Moore and Frank Sanders, two dangerous backs in Adrian Murrell and Larry Centers and a defense that sacked Troy Aikman four times Saturday.

The Vikings say they figured they'd be playing the Cardinals, too. Cornerback Corey Fuller went so far as to call Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders, a fellow Florida State product, to make that prediction.

"Honestly, I told Deion that Arizona was going to beat them," Fuller said. "I think they wanted it more."

That's not likely to be the case this weekend.

Since its only loss at Tampa Bay on Nov. 1, Minnesota has trailed only twice -- during the first quarter at Baltimore on Dec. 13 and at halftime at Tennessee on Dec. 26. They have won by an average of more than 17 points during their eight-game winning streak, including seven straight by at least 10 points.

They accomplished that with remarkable poise, ignoring a steady string of injuries that, at one time or another, cost them five starters on offense and two key backups -- quarterback Brad Johnson and offensive lineman Everett Lindsay.

Now the Vikings are almost completely healthy.

"I'm as healthy as I've been in my career, period, at this point in the season," quarterback Randall Cunningham said, showing off a significant decrease in swelling on the back of his broken left hand. "The hand's much better. I mean, even the purple came out of it."

As they have all season long, the Vikings seemed Monday to be focusing in on the task at hand -- Sunday's game against Arizona, and picking up exactly where they left off two weeks ago.

"With our mindset, I think we're going out there to destroy anybody in front of us," receiver Randy Moss said.