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The enterprising folks that work for the St. Louis Rams have presented their fans with a challenge. They are offering $100,000 for any person that can correctly predict the entire 2014 Rams' schedule. Not just the opponents, mind you. . .oh, no, everyone knows those already. See, in order to claim the $100,000, a person must predict all of the following:
-The sequence of the games
-The day of the week each game will be played on
-When the team's bye week will fall
So, as this example from CBS Sports says, if one were to predict that the Rams would host the Arizona Cardinals on a Sunday and it winds up being a Monday night game, then no $100,000 for you. According to our friends over at Turf Show Times, the odds of predicting a perfect Rams' schedule is 1-in-36 quadrillion. . .or, if you like to look at really big numbers, 1-in-36,000,000,000,000,000.
To put that into perspective, Warren Buffett was offering $1,000,000,000 for a perfect NCAA tournament bracket, and the odds of that are 1-in-128,000,000,000 according to Business Insider. Granted, the Business Insider article does take a couple of mathematical liberties, but there are some things we've learned about the Vikings' 2014 schedule that could help out a bit as well.
With that in mind, for bragging rights only (and with the schedule set to be released next Tuesday), this is your opportunity to take a stab at predicting the 2014 Minnesota Vikings schedule.
Here are a few things to help you out a bit. . .
-Vikings' 2014 home opponents: Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, New England Patriots, New York Jets, Washington Redskins
-Vikings' 2014 road opponents: Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, St. Louis Rams
-The Vikings would not be able to host a Monday or Thursday night game until Week 16 or 17. In keeping with that, there isn't a Monday night or Thursday night game in Week 17, and I'm not sure if there's a Thursday night game in Week 16, either. They could be the road team for one of those games in any week.
-There will be a Week 16 doubleheader of Saturday games on CBS.
-The Minnesota Golden Gophers, who the Vikings will be sharing TCF Bank Stadium with, have home games on 6 September, 20 September, 11 October, 18 October, 8 November, and 15 November. I haven't heard one way or another if they're going to want the Gophers and the Vikings playing at home on the same weekend, but if you think it might be an influence, there you go.
With that in mind, feel free to take your hack at predicting the 2014 Minnesota Vikings' schedule! If you should happen to overcome the 1-in-36,000,000,000,000,000 odds and predict it correctly, well. . .we don't have anything for you. Sure as heck don't have $100,000 for you. You're pretty much playing for bragging rights here, folks.