Some teams take the summit at a sprint, and others reach it by pacing the climb and simply still being upright when the light goes. On Oct. 25 the San Francisco 49ers lost in Atlanta and the Kansas City Chiefs lost in Seattle, while at U.S. Bank Stadium the Minnesota Vikings ground out a 16-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts. They went to bed at 6-0 as the only unbeaten team in the NFL, and two days later CBS Sports' Pete Prisco made it official by putting them first in his Week 8 Power Rankings.

Nobody threw much of a coronation. The same Prisco who handed over the crown wrote that Minnesota is winning "without a real semblance of an offense that scores or scares," and the arithmetic gives him little reason to take it back: 125 points in six games, 10 touchdowns all told, from a team that sits first in scoring defense and 23rd in scoring offense. Since September one unit has been extending the club credit. The other has yet to pay back a cent.

The anatomy of a narrow win

The Colts game was Prisco's argument in miniature. Indianapolis struck first, at 9:13 of the opening quarter, when Jonathan Taylor broke a 38-yard touchdown run on his way to 95 rushing yards and his eighth touchdown in seven games, and Minnesota answered the way it has answered all autumn, with Will Reichard's right foot. He was good from 28 yards, then from 47, and that second kick, his 36th straight make, took the franchise record of 35 that Gary Anderson had owned since 1998. Spencer Shrader added a 43-yarder as the halftime gun sounded. Colts 10, Vikings 6.

Minnesota did not lead until the fourth quarter. With 14:36 left Kyler Murray, who had spent most of the afternoon managing rather than attacking, ran a 35-yard scramble into the red zone and then found T.J. Hockenson for a five-yard touchdown, the only time all day the Vikings crossed the goal line; Reichard tacked on a 52-yarder with 1:39 to play. Thirty-one seconds later Harrison Smith intercepted Daniel Jones, who finished 13 of 22 for 108 yards, and Indianapolis' last drive died on the spot.

Murray's line, 14 of 24 for 150 yards and a touchdown plus 39 rushing yards on five carries, reads like a shift clocked out more than a game won, and the leading rusher was Jordan Mason with 68 yards on the ground. Justin Jefferson, rarely a quiet presence, caught four of his seven targets for 44 yards. The bill came afterward, when head coach Kevin O'Connell said Aaron Jones had aggravated a previous knee injury.

Minnesota has reached the top on the strength of what it takes away, and it will only stay there if it starts to add something.

Whatever the rankings are rewarding lives on the other side of the ball, where Prisco calls the defense "special" and gives the credit to Brian Flores, a coordinator he describes as "uber-aggressive." Holding Indianapolis to 10 points protected a lead, but it also spared the offense the one job it has shown it cannot do, which is chase a game. The formula is close to an equation in which possessions are limited, mistakes are forced and Reichard turns short fields into points. Ergo, a 6-0 record built on margins, not on blowouts.

That is where Prisco's doubts take hold. A team ranked 29th in passing yards per game needs a nearly flawless defense every Sunday, a risk he names plainly when he writes that Murray "has to be better," and the offense's slightly livelier afternoon came against a Colts defense he judged "not very good." A low bar. Not a trend.

Four weeks that will decide the rest

Below them the table keeps shifting. Prisco moves the Buffalo Bills (5-1) up to second, drops the 49ers (6-1) to third after four turnovers in Atlanta and the Chiefs (5-1) to fourth, still lacking the deep threat Patrick Mahomes needs, and at the bottom the Los Angeles Chargers, 0-6 and the league's only winless team, spent their bye watching the Miami Dolphins, fresh off a first win against the New York Jets, climb past them.

Minnesota's next month reads like an exam timetable: at Detroit, Buffalo at home, at Green Bay, then the 49ers in Mexico, three division or conference contenders plus the AFC's second-ranked team without a soft week anywhere in the stretch. Defenses have dragged teams through October before, but very few have carried one alone through a run like this, and 125 points suggest the help has not arrived yet.

For now the ranking stands and the record is clean. On Sunday, Ford Field starts to answer whether first place is where the Vikings belong or merely where they happen to be standing.