The Vikings will play in the Super Bowl in two years.

That’s the prediction of former Viking Bob Lurtsema, who played in two Super Bowls (1974-75).

“Legitimately, the Vikings are two years away,” said the ex-defensive lineman who spent five of his 12 NFL seasons with the Vikings. “The thing now is that (Vikings QB) Teddy Bridgewater, who is the real deal, doesn’t have a deep threat.”

So Lurtsema, who remains closer to the Vikings — players and management — than many of the franchise’s other former players, expects the Vikings to choose a wide receiver with their No. 11 pick in April’s NFL draft.

Another reason that Lurtsema, 72, expects the Vikings to reach the Super Bowl in two seasons is Mike Zimmer, who coached the team to a 7-9 record and third place in their division in his first season.

“I absolutely love Zimmer — he has so much Bud Grant in him,” said Lurtsema, who played for the Hall of Fame coach. “Zimmer told me that he’s cut better athletes and kept lesser athletes who had more heart and more between their ears.

“I looked up (Zimmer’s) record when he was defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals for six years (2008-2013), and his players were No. 1 in assisted tackles of all 32 teams in average during those years. That’s six years of (comparing) apples to apples of every team. That’s telling you he has his players hustling to the ball and that they’re going to continue to improve.”

Lurtsema’s Vikings Super Bowl forecast comes with a caveat, though.

“Things have to go your way, too — one play here, one play there. One bad official’s call,” he said.

Lurtsema expects the Vikings’ offensive line to improve, including left tackle Matt Kalil.

“I think many times Kalil was unjustly criticized,” Lurtsema said. “He never blamed anyone else. There are other things — if a quarterback calls a three-stop drop, it’s got to be a three-stop drop. Don’t be a four-step or two-step, because offensive linemen can’t see out of the back of their heads. It’s little things. He’s too good a football player — I mean, he was unbelievable his rookie year.”

What if Adrian Peterson isn’t back with the Vikings?

“If that doesn’t happen, they’ll come up with some running back,” Lurtsema said.

Lurtsema also likes offensive coordinator Norv Turner a lot.

“With Zimmer and Turner, that’s a double positive,” he said. “I think they’ll be a playoff team next year, one of the last two teams to get in. Detroit’s coming on, the Packers are the Packers and the Bears — (QB Jay) Cutler is a space cadet — but they’re bringing in the new coach, John Fox, and that’s a tremendous plus.”

For Sunday, Lurtsema predicts a New England victory over Seattle in the Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.

“(Patriots coach Bill) Belichick has a tremendous talent for playing each player to his strength,” Lurtsema said. “He’ll take a player, and some people will say that player ‘is terrible,’ and Belichick will make him a very good player. If it’s a defensive player, he’ll change his defense around the strengths of what he brought in.

“He’s not a running coach, he’s not a passing coach, he’s what the players dictate for him to coach.”

NFL representatives will be in Minneapolis next month to begin prepping for the 2018 Super Bowl that will have a still-undetermined amount of seats, but more than 70,000 of them, in the Vikings stadium that for regular-season games will seat approximately 65,400.

Vikings season-ticket holders in 2018 will get a chance for Super Bowl tickets that year through a lottery provided by the Vikings.

For Sunday’s New England-Seattle game, tickets on StubHub were $8,000 and more just to get into the stadium. Prime Sports, which controls a large percentage of the secondary market, hasn’t made the tickets available to brokers as it usually does, one broker said.

Construction of the Vikings’ stadium remains on schedule for a July 2016 completion, and two Vikings preseason games will be held there that year. Last week, welders were fully engaged at midnight working on the stadium.

The bid process to host an NCAA football championship game in Minneapolis in 2018, 2019 or 2020 will begin this month. A decision isn’t expected until next November.

The Vikings stadium will host the 2019 NCAA Final Four. Minneapolis also will pursue a Big Ten football championship for the stadium.

The Vikings continue to discuss the potential for a Major League Soccer franchise with the league and are including a stadium-reduction mechanism as part of the design for a soccer-specific locker room, lighting and seating configuration that begins at 20,000.

During the Super Bowl, 1.25 billion chicken wings will be eaten, the WalletHub social network estimates.

Ex-Viking Randy Moss will report from team hotels as part of NBC-TV’s Super Bowl pregame coverage. Ex-Viking Rich Gannon will host some of SiriusXM’s Super Bowl coverage.

Super Bowl mainstays — the NFL Experience and Taste of the NFL — originated at the 1992 Super Bowl week in Minnesota.

St. Paul’s Andy Bischoff, who was an assistant to Marc Trestman the past two seasons with the Chicago Bears, is headed to the Baltimore Ravens as an assistant.

Former Viking Matt Birk, a Harvard grad from St. Paul, was among honorees at the Ivy Football Association Dinner in New York City.

Former Eden Prairie High and Minnesota Maulers (semi-pro) quarterback Todd Downing has been hired as QB coach by the Oakland Raiders, joining ex-Vikings coach Mike Tice on former Viking Jack Del Rio‘s staff.

Brian Eayrs from Chaska, a former Augsburg QB, is in his second season as director of research and development for the Seattle Seahawks. His father, Mike, the Vikings’ former director of R&D, does the same for the Green Bay Packers.

That was former Twins infielder Al Newman at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix, coaching the Minnesota Blizzard under-17 baseball team in a big Martin Luther King tournament attended by many major league scouts.

The Twins have the second-best minor league talent in baseball, behind only the Cubs, according to ESPN’s evaluation.

Former No. 1 prospect Byron Buxton of the Twins has slipped to No. 2, mostly because of injuries last year. Miguel Sano has slid to No. 15 because of injury; Alex Meyer is No. 30, Nick Gordon No. 33, Kohl Stewart No. 53 and Jose Berrios No. 97. That’s six prospects in the top 100 and four in the top 50.

Perennial division leader Detroit, by the way, has just one player in the top 100, and among its star players, Justin Verlander is 32, Victor Martinez 36, Joe Nathan 40, and Miguel Cabrera, Ian Kinsler and Anibal Sanchez all over 30.

The Twins have the No. 6 overall pick for June’s amateur draft.

For decades, Jim Smith coached men’s basketball victory after victory at St. John’s but didn’t get a lot of national notice because the Johnnies’ John Gagliardi kept coaching football victory after victory en route to becoming college football’s all-time leader.

When Smith’s Johnnies upended Concordia 73-68 in Moorhead last week, the soft-spoken Smith won his 780th game, tying Lute Olson for 15th on college basketball’s all-time victories list. Olson coached at Arizona, Iowa and Augsburg. Eleven days earlier, Smith surpassed Lou Henson (Illinois, New Mexico State and Hardin-Simmons) for 16th on the list.

Smith is six victories shy of tying Lefty Driesell (Maryland, Davidson, James Madison and Georgia State) for 14th.

“I’m shooting for Krzyzewski’s mark,” Smith said with a laugh.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski the other day became the first Division I men’s basketball coach to reach 1,000 victories.

“That’s incredible,” Smith said.

Smith, 80, has coached at St. John’s for 51 seasons. He said the victories list hasn’t been that important to him.

“Just trying to get by one game at a time right now,” he said, sounding like his old pal Gagliardi. “It’s great being mentioned among the same names as Lou Henson and Lute Olson, people like that. They’re great coaches. For me, it’s just sort of longevity — I’ve been at it so long.

“When I look back, I guess if I were that concerned about overall record, I would not have played some of the Division I schools we played — Marquette (his alma mater), DePaul, Creighton, Loyola, Detroit, whoever. You find out what you can do and what you can’t do and what you have to strive for if you want to be very, very good.

“But that was a great experience for my players, and they loved playing them. It was good for our program and good for our students.”

Gagliardi coached until he was 86, retiring two years ago with 489 victories. Smith has no plans to retire.

“A lot depends on my health, which is pretty good right now, and my (Adrienne) wife’s health, and she’s doing OK now,” Smith said. “It’s been a great ride, no matter what happens, at a great place. It would be very difficult to leave here, but eventually I’m going to have to do it — unless I die at halfcourt.”

As a result of a broken right ankle and four subsequent surgeries over 11 months, St. Thomas Academy basketball coach Mike Sjoberg will take an extended leave of absence. Tom Ihnot will be interim coach.

Lynx guard Maya Moore scored 48 points for her Shanxi Chinese team in an 86-77 victory over Liaoning the other day while Lynx teammate Lindsay Whalen, playing in Turkey, had 15 points for her Abdullah Gul Uni team in a 77-73 victory over Bourges.

Breck’s Will Culliton, who is headed to West Point in the fall, last week set the Golden Valley school basketball scoring record with his 1,718th point.

Happy birthday: Ed Lechner, who starred for the 1940-41 Gophers national football champions, recently turned 95.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Twins manager Paul Molitor has Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco and Kyle Gibson penciled in as starters heading to spring training, with a handful of pitchers competing for the No. 5 spot. A couple of pitchers who don’t get the No. 5 spot are expected to end up in the bullpen, the others at Class AAA Rochester.

Look for Jeff Sorenson to be named the new golf teaching professional at the Minakahda Club in Minneapolis.

Gophers athletics director Norwood Teague heads to Naples, Fla., on Monday on a fundraising mission.

The Timberwolves’ Zach LaVine is a 2-to-3 favorite to win the NBA’s slam dunk contest at all-star weekend, according to Bovada-Las Vegas.

Tickets for the Wild-Blackhawks Feb. 21, 2016, game at TCF Bank Stadium could cost a minimum of $100. The NHL could enjoy a gate of about $1 million more by having the game at the Gophers’ venue rather than Target Field because of more seating.

Ex-Gophers running back David Cobb impressed scouts during practices at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., last week and could end up in the fourth round of April’s NFL draft, perhaps with the Vikings.

That was Gophers football coach Jerry Kill spotted at Eagan High on Friday.

If the Timberwolves end up with the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA draft, they would have three No. 1 overall picks, with the new pick joining Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett.

Former Wild general manager Doug Risebrough, scouting for the New York Rangers, was at a recent Wild-Columbus victory over Minnesota in St. Paul. Risebrough’s former Wild coach, Jacques Lemaire, is enjoying semi-retirement in Florida while consulting for the New Jersey Devils, and his top Wild assistant, Mario Tremblay, is doing TV-radio work for the Canadiens in Montreal.

Of the 23 rostered Columbus players, Wild historian Roger Godin points out, 10 were Americans, including former Gophers Hobey Baker winner Jordan Leopold of Robbinsdale.

The Herb Brooks-coached 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s “miracle” hockey team’s 4-3 upset of the vaunted Soviet Union in Lake Placid en route to the gold medal will be viewed from a Russian perspective on an ESPN “30 for 30” film next Sunday.

OVERHEARD

First-year Twins manager Paul Molitor on the speech he’s working on to give players the first day of spring training: “You’re only going to have one first day, so you try to make an impression and let the players know where you’re at, what you expect. And they’re going to be anxious to get on the field, so less is better sometimes.”

Follow Charley Walters at twitter.com/Charley_Walters. He can be reached at cwalters@pioneerpress.com.