Keenum’s heave caps Vikings’ comeback
Minnesota erases two late Saints’ leads
MINNEAPOLIS – In giant white letters on signage throughout the stadium, and in purple print on white towels placed on each of the 66,000 seats at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings made their intentions clear.
Bring it home, the signs said. Home, as in, to the Super Bowl, which will be played here in three weeks.
The Vikings are one win from becoming the first team to play a Super Bowl at home after a 29-24 divisional round victory against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs scored the winning touchdown as time expired as Saints safety Marcus Williams dived at his legs rather than trying for a tackle. After Diggs regained his balance, he had a clear path to the end zone, where he was mobbed by teammates while fireworks exploded inside the stadium.
“I can’t even explain it,” Vikings quarterback Case Keenum said. “I tried to give my guy a chance, and he made a heck of a play. … I don’t even know what just happened.”
He had led fans in a “Skol” chant while waiting for 11 Saints players to return from the locker room in order to take a kneel on the extra-point attempt.
It was a stunning end to a game the Saints appeared to have won in the closing seconds, after a 43-yard field goal by Saints kicker Wil Lutz with 25 seconds remaining. Lutz’s kick came 64 seconds after the Vikings took a 23-21 lead on a 53-yard field goal by Kai Forbath.
After Lutz’s kick, fans inside the Vikings new home stadium fell silent at the prospect of yet another playoff heart- break. Two years ago, they stood frozen at the team’s temporary outdoor home at the University of Minnesota as kicker Blair Walsh shanked a 27-yard attempt that would have won a wild-card game against the Seahawks.
Fortunately for the Vikings, Keenum did not share the same sense of dread.
“I’m going to give someone a chance,” he said as he gathered his teammates in the huddle with 10 seconds remaining.
The play call relayed in from offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur was predictable, one they run frequently during practices Usually, though, the ball goes to receiver Jarius Wright, the Vikings’ possession receiver.
But this was Diggs’ moment. He dropped the ball as he sprinted through the end zone and into the tunnel, where he collapsed under a pile of teammates. Wright retrieved the ball and returned it to Diggs when they got to the locker room, and Diggs and Keenum proudly showed it off as they posed for photographs captured on Diggs’ iPhone.
“It meant so much to see my quarterback believe in me in the last play of the game,” Diggs said.
The Vikings will travel to play the No. 1 seed Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game next week, a game in which Minnesota is likely to be favored, thanks to the top-ranked defense that largely shut down Drew Brees and the Saints.
The Vikings intercepted Brees twice and held the Saints without a thirddown conversion in the first half.
For much of the game, each time Brees and the Saints offense seemed to find life, the Vikings defense found an answer — from Andrew Sendejo’s leaping interception on a deep pass in the first quarter, to a no-look deflection by defensive end Everson Griffen that wound up in the arms of linebacker Anthony Barr, to safety Harrison Smith’s third-down sack just before halftime that forced a long field goal attempt that was missed.
But this had been the Vikings’ winning formula for much of the season: bring pressure with Griffen and the rest of the hearty defensive front, play tight coverage in the secondary, with cornerback Xavier Rhodes and Smith and Sendejo.
The Vikings finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in total defense and points allowed.
But the Vikings defense showed cracks in the second half, as Brees and the Saints found momentum after Sendejo was knocked out of the game with a concussion on a hit by receiver Michael Thomas.
Thomas caught a touchdown pass one play later to spark a Saints rally and scored again early in the fourth quarter to cut Minnesota’s lead to 17-14.
The Vikings managed to extend the lead to 20-14 on their next possession on a 49-yard field goal by Forbath, on a drive that featured two questionable challenges by Saints coach Sean Payton, who wanted to review a deep completion by Jarius Wright and if Keenum was down before a third-down incompletion. Payton lost both challenges — and two timeouts.
Those challenges and a blown trick play minutes later on New Orleans’ next drive will haunt the Saints into the postseason. On third down, Payton called for a a pitch from Brees to receiver Willie Snead, who tried to launch a deep pass to Alvin Kamara, who had broken free down the right seam. But the pass was off target.