Brees, Saints return to scene of Minneapolis Miracle

The last time the Saints and Vikings hooked up, folks in Minnesota were toasting Stefon Diggs with steins of Surly, and people in Louisiana were crying in their gumbo.

They get together again in prime time, a nice treat to finish off a Sunday. The Saints sure hope there’s no second Minneapolis Miracle.

“This is not a revenge game,” Drew Brees insists, referring to the playoff loss in January. “It’s a different season. These are new teams, even though there’s a lot of similar personnel. It’s a new season, new team, new mindset. So listen, it’s a very good opponent that we are playing on ‘Sunday Night Football’ at their place. It is a tough environment (and) a tough place to play. We understand we’re going to need our best game, our best execution to win.”

The Saints (5-1) have been doing a lot of winning since the Buccaneers upset them in the opener. Last week the Saints won in a “tough environment” against a playoff-caliber Ravens team in Baltimore. Now they get the Vikings (4-2-1), who have been spotty but lead the NFC North and are 14-3 at home against the Saints.

The Vikings might feel equipped enough to get into a shootout with Brees, but when you listen to their coach, Mike Zimmer, who has a defensive background, he knows his side will be tested. The Vikings will have end Everson Griffen available as he returns from dealing with mental issues that sidelined him for almost six weeks.

“As the game goes on, Brees gets a much better feel of what the defense is trying to do throughout the course of the ballgame with him,” Zimmer said.

“A guy like him who has seen everything — he sees everything anyway — but he’s seen so many different looks that he can kind of decipher things quickly on the move. That’s part of it, and he’s got good players too. Michael Thomas is good, (Alvin) Kamara is good, (Mike) Ingram is good. They have a lot of good players.” ■ Green Bay comes off a bye, which means Aaron Rodgers is healthier and could have more targets to connect with. The Packers rank fourth in passing and Rodgers has 332.8 yards passing per game and 12 touchdowns, one pick. But the Packers opened as the biggest underdog of Rodgers’ career. The undefeated Rams are favored by more than a touchdown at home.

“He just pulled me aside and said, ‘Man, I spent so many years playing in the Meadowlands, and understanding wind is the No. 1 thing you have to do,’ ” Palmer said, a reference to Collins’ years with the Giants. “He said, ‘You have to finish it off your pointer finger, and you have to throw a tight spiral. If the ball’s got a little bit of wobble …’

“Then I started to work on it. It’s something that I hung my hat on my entire career, what I learned from Kerry Collins that one day.”

Palmer is retired but he has looked to impart that wisdom to Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, another former USC standout. But experiencing that wind — as Darnold will do to some degree Sunday at Soldier Field — is the best way to learn.

“When you’re Sam, you don’t want to go in the bubble,” Palmer said.

“You want to throw the ball outside every day, just to learn it. You can go to Oregon, you can go to Wazzu, wherever. You don’t get the wind like you do in a place like the AFC East or AFC North.”