MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Vikings have beaten the Green Bay Packers once in this decade, back on Dec. 30, 2012, when they clinched their most recent trip to the playoffs with a 37-34 win at the Metrodome. Apart from that victory, the Vikings haven't had much success against their biggest rival.

Has their recent record against the Packers come up this week? "The 1-9-1 in the last 11?" coach Mike Zimmer said Wednesday afternoon. "No, not yet."

By now, it's Friday morning, and we're going to bet it's come up. And if it hasn't, it probably will before the Vikings and Packers kick off late Sunday afternoon, in a game scheduled to be televised in 41 states and parts of five others.

"I want our team to have a chip-on-the-shoulder mentality," coach Mike Zimmer says of his 7-2 Vikings. AP Photo/Ben Margot

Zimmer likes to use statistics like these as little reminders to his players of how much history they're tasked with rewriting, and how much work they still have to do. Before the Kansas City Chiefs game on Oct. 18, the Vikings hadn't won after a bye week in five years (final score: 16-10 Vikings). Before the Detroit Lions game on Oct. 25, they'd won just one division game on the road since 2009 (final: 28-19 Vikings). They carried a seven-game losing streak at Soldier Field into their Nov. 1 game with the Bears (23-20 Vikings). And before their Nov. 8 game against the St. Louis Rams, they'd beaten just one team with a winning record in Zimmer's tenure (21-18 Vikings).

The Vikings have ended so many of these streaks lately that Zimmer had to start looking for material beyond what reporters would parrot back to him. Before last Sunday's game against the Oakland Raiders, he asked Vikings public-relations exec Bob Hagan to look up the last time the team had won in California. Two days before the game, he told reporters the answer: 2007. Never mind the fact the Vikings had played two games out there since then.

"I want our team to have a chip-on-the-shoulder mentality," Zimmer said. "If somebody says we can't do something, that's really it."

The second-year coach isn't of the belief that his statistical shivs are the driving force behind a five-game win streak that's lifted the Vikings to 7-2, but they are reflective of a mentality that's evolved from proving doubters wrong to dissuading a young team from believing its own hype. Zimmer has talked about the four stages of learning each team goes through; right now, the Vikings are probably somewhere between learning to win (the second stage) and learning how to handle success (the third stage). The path to the fourth -- learning how to be a championship team -- can easily get detoured by overconfidence.

"I think with a young team, you can get caught up in, 'Oh, if we do this ...' and they start taking things for granted, instead of understanding the process that got us to this point," Zimmer said. "The problem is, every team in this league is good, and every team can win on Sunday. If you're not on point and you don't play your best, you have a good opportunity to get beat."

He probably hasn't had to search much for motivational material this week, with reminders of the Vikings' recent futility against Green Bay available at every turn and plenty of players who remember a 42-10 drubbing on national TV last year. Zimmer, who missed out on a handful of head-coaching jobs before the Vikings hired him in 2014, said again this week he enjoys proving people wrong, though he added that's not his purest source of ambition. "Honestly, we're 7-2, right?" he said. "We lose the next seven games, we'd be 7-9. I'd get the same record [as last season], and I'm fired. That's what motivates me."

But in the psyche of some athletes, a chorus of doubters can be a powerful thing. So Zimmer will find his opportunities to remind his players of those doubters, even if they're getting harder to find.

"[It's] trying to add some accountability to the team," Zimmer said. "'Hey, look, this is what they're saying about you. Here's what they're saying. Is this really what you want them to talk to you about?'"