Minnesota Knocks Out Cincinnati : Pro football: Vikings’ 29-21 victory earns playoff berth for themselves, Steelers. It also ends hopes of Bengals, Packers.

While Pittsburgh Steeler and Green Bay Packer players and their families watched nervously on television at home, the Minnesota Vikings decided the fate for all three teams, as well as that of the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Vikings won the NFC Central title Monday night, beating Cincinnati, 29-21, as Rich Karlis kicked five field goals and Chris Doleman led a league-leading defense that produced six turnovers and barely held off a late charge by the Bengals.

The victory eliminated the Bengals, the defending AFC champions, from the playoffs and put Pittsburgh in for the first time in five years as the second AFC wild card.

The result also knocked out Green Bay, which tied Minnesota at 10-6 but was 5-3 in the division, compared to 6-2 for Minnesota.

The Vikings, who finished 8-0 at home, go on the road to play either San Francisco or the New York Giants in two weeks, and the Steelers, in the playoffs for the first time in five years, are at Houston next Sunday in the AFC wild-card game.

“It’s a great feeling, the best feeling I’ve had in 38 years of coaching,” Minnesota coach Jerry Burns said. “There was a lot of pressure on us. If we had lost, all hell would have broken.”

Karlis had first-half field goals of 31, 37, 22, 42 and 24 yards, and Wade Wilson passed for 264 yards in the first two periods alone, but just 39 in the second half as Minnesota scored on its first five possessions, took a 22-7 halftime lead, then let the defense take over.

It was almost an error.

Boomer Esiason, sacked six times, threw a 65-yard touchdown pass to Rodney Holman on the third play of the second half, then combined with Craig Taylor on an 18-yarder with 8:49 left in the game that cut it to 22-21. Esiason finished 31 of 54 for 367 yards.

But the Vikings came back with a 67-yard drive aided by 27 yards in penalties against Cincinnati to put the game away on Wilson’s one-yard touchdown pass to backup tight end Brent Novoselsky with 4:17 left. Novoselsky, who had three receptions all year for 10 yards, made a diving catch in the corner over Leon Barker.

The win gave Minnesota its first division title since 1980 and dropped the Bengals to 8-8 and into last place in the AFC Central, a division that produced three of the AFC’s five playoff teams.

“We played as hard and as well as we could,” Bengals coach Sam Wyche said. “The Vikings also played well and I think they’ll do well in the playoffs.”

The title was forged in a manner that made the Vikings a preseason favorite. Their league-leading defense got three sacks from Doleman and 2 1/2 by Henry Thomas, intercepted Esiason three times and forced three fumbles.