MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Vikings returned from their bye week with a two-game lead in the NFC North, a fresh anointing from the national media as one of the NFL's "It Teams" and a ready-made storyline before their trip to face Sam Bradford's old team in Philadelphia this weekend.

The trusty cadre of naysayers that coach Mike Zimmer has typically used for motivation might be hard to find this week, but after a week spent scouting his own team's tendencies, Zimmer wasn't about to let the Vikings return from their break in a haughty mood.

"There are lots of things [we need to improve]," Zimmer said. "Some of the coverages we're playing, we have to do a better job of. Offensively, we've got to eliminate minus plays -- keeps putting us in difficult situations -- and a lot of it is philosophical talk about five weeks, too, which I'm not going to talk about."

Several minutes later, though, Zimmer offered an outlook on the season that sounded like something he might have told his players.

"I think it's 0-0 now, and we start a new season," he said. "You just forget about what has happened in the past, and we start moving on. So, now it's, for us, I think it's an 11-game season, and we'll see where we're at then."

The Vikings' ability to mimic their coach's singular focus has been beneficial in a season already lined with sudden plot twists, and it will serve the Vikings well if the wins (and the attention) keep mounting.

When the Vikings used to get time off during the coach's first season, Zimmer said, they'd return "and forget everything they had learned." That wasn't a problem on Monday, as the Vikings had what cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said might have been the best practice he'd ever seen from a team returning from its bye.

"Today, we were kind of locked in, focused, flying around and having fun," Munnerlyn said. "Everybody's excited to just get back on the field and get back to work. We know we're 5-0, but at the same time, it's a new season for us. The only thing on our mind is going 1-0 now."

That mindset could help insulate the Vikings from their growing reputation as contenders.

"Everybody's going to want to knock the undefeated team off," Munnerlyn said. "Teams are going to come at us a little bit more. We're going to expect that, but at the same time, we've got to do what we can control, and that's go out there and play hard-nosed football."