EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- The Minnesota Vikings are on their first three-game win streak since 2012 -- the last time they went to the playoffs -- and they've posted back-to-back road wins in the division for the first time since 2009. They're just a game back of the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North, and they've earned enough respect that their Nov. 22 game against the Packers has been moved into a late-afternoon national TV slot.

In other words, they're somewhere between Stages 2 and 3 of Mike Zimmer's Four Levels of NFL Learning.

What's that, now?

The Vikings' late rally on Sunday was further proof that they can handle tense situations, coach Mike Zimmer said. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Zimmer said Monday he's talked to the Vikings for a while about how there are four things a team has to learn in the NFL. "First you learn how to compete, then you learn how to win, then you learn how to handle winning, and then you learn how to be a champion.

"So we’re somewhere in that stage of learning how to win and learning how to handle winning. But we’re still young. These are things that we have to understand."

The Vikings will get an interesting snapshot of where they're at starting as soon as this Sunday, when the St. Louis Rams come to town for what could be a tricky test at TCF Bank Stadium. Minnesota's next five opponents have a combined record of 30-15, and a Vikings team that has won five of six will see pretty quickly what can happen if it doesn't stay grounded.

But there are clear signs of progress. Before Sunday, the Vikings hadn't won at Soldier Field since 2007, leading defensive end Brian Robison to call the team's matchup with the Chicago Bears a "true hump game." They lost four games by a field goal or less last season, and already had lost by a field goal four weeks earlier in Denver.

The Vikings have been in tense situations enough by now, Zimmer said, that they're learning how to handle them. They scored 10 points in the final 1:49 on Sunday to beat the Bears by three.

"I just think we’re getting a mindset that we’re pretty battle-hardened," Zimmer said. "We’ve been in a lot of these situations on the road, we’ve been in maybe some situations at home where we’ve started well. But we’ve got a lot of fighters on this football team. I do think they believe when it gets to the crucial situations of the game that we can perform."

That's Stage 2. Now come the harder steps -- and against the tougher stretch of the Vikings' schedule.

"The one thing that I have noticed about this team, they’re not a tight, nervous kind of team," Zimmer said. "I think they’re confident but they’re also focused on the job. When you haven’t had success, it’s easy to fall into that trap, but I think we have enough veteran guys to remind them of these kind of things. [Offensive coordinator] Norv [Turner] does a good job with it and [defensive coordinator] George [Edwards] does a good job with it and we kind of stay on their rear ends a little bit.