Local boy does good
Brian T. Smith writes about Case Keenum’s late rise to top.
You know the name: Case Keenum.
There’s no better story in the NFL right now. And of course the 29-year-old from Abilene is extending his Hollywood script during a season when the 4-8 Texans lost their franchise QB and have spent the last two months watching their year fall apart.
Keenum watched and learned from Matt Schaub, threw bombs to Andre Johnson on national TV, kept running backward in a disastrous 2013 season and was twice discarded by O’Brien’s team.
He has bounced around, persevered, endured and overcome. Six seasons into a criss-cross career that began as an undrafted rookie on the Texans’ practice squad, No. 7 for the Minnesota Vikings has finally become everything his believers always knew he could be.
“It’s been a blast. It really has,” Keenum said this week, as friendly and down to earth as ever. “I’ve been a part of some times where it hasn’t been so good, and times like those make these feel really good, so you appreciate it a lot more.
“I’ve always been confident in myself and my abilities and what I could do. I feel like I’ve gotten better and I’ve improved as a player and as a quarterback. It’s a great opportunity, and it’s a great situation for me, and the team I have here is very talented and playing really well together. So we’re having a lot of fun.”
Ball protector
Keenum is 8-2 in 10 starts and already has recorded a career year in 2017. His 2,703 passing yards, 16 touchdowns, 7.5 yards per attempt and 67.5 completion percentage are all personal NFL bests. He also ranks eighth among all QBs in passer rating (98.6) and has been the anti-Tom Savage when it comes to turnovers, throwing only five interceptions in 360 attempts.
“If a defensive coordinator could play quarterback, he would play it just about the way that Case Keenum plays the game. ‘Don’t screw it up … for my defense, because they are simply that good,’ ” NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth said. “I am not going to compare him to Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, but it has that same sort of feel. ‘Is the season over for the Minnesota Vikings? They are on their third quarterback, the poor Vikings.’ … It is one of the really tremendous stories that has been happening this year.”
Minnesota’s defense ranks second among 32 teams in average points (17) and total yards (289.1) allowed per game, while the Vikings’ offense is sixth in average rushing yards (122.8).
Finally: the perfect team, setup and situation for Keenum.
But it hasn’t been ideal. Minnesota also lost promising rookie running back Dalvin Cook in Week 4, while former No. 1 QB Sam Bradford was limited to two starts due to injury. And 2014 first-round pick Teddy Bridgewater — once seen as the Vikings’ long-term answer (and an arm the Texans missed in the draft) — was activated in Week 10.
Erasing any remaining doubt with W’s and TDs that just keep piling up, the 6-1, 205-pound Keenum has kept Bridgewater on the bench and cemented his standing in Minnesota with each passing week,
What’s so special about Keenum — other than the pure natural talent that carried him through star runs at Wylie High School and the University of Houston?
Learned a lot
Dedication, his former Texans teammate said.
“The way he prepared, it was unlike anyone else. He was super prepared,” Savage said. “He’s a great guy, a great locker room guy. Everyone always loved him here. I couldn’t be happier for the guy.”
Keenum’s first run with the Texans was an inconsistent mess, mainly because the undrafted Coog took over at midseason for a broken team that ultimately fired Gary Kubiak on the way to an NFL-worst 2-14 mark. By the time O’Brien took over in January 2014, the Texans were searching for a new franchise QB to replace Schaub — the quest sifted through an embarrassing assortment of names, lasting more than 3½ years — and Keenum always was viewed as the lesser of the options.
“He was with us in our first training camp here, really did a good job. Very smart, really good leadership qualities. … Whatever happened happened,” O’Brien said. “We moved on, and he’s been in a few places, but now he’s having a great year. We have a lot of respect for Case. We think he’s a heck of a player and an even better guy with a lot of great qualities, no doubt about it.”
Keenum returned to Kirby Drive to guide the Texans to two gutsy late-seasons wins in 2014, nearly pushing his temporary team into the playoffs during O’Brien’s first year. And while that inspiring run was followed by two uneven years (in two cities) with the Rams, there were always the fervent supporters like the ones I observed in July 2015, when Keenum’s NFL career was at another crossroads as he signed autographs at a Katy car lot.
“Hang in there, man. Don’t give up just yet,” a Keenum believer said then.
“Every little thing I’ve done has been working on my craft,” said Keenum, whose career completion percentage has risen to 61.3 after a career-low 54.2 percent mark during his initial 0-8 run leading the Texans. “My first years with Kubiak were huge. Getting away from Houston and getting to St. Louis there for that short period of time was great. Learning there and then coming back for O’Brien — my time with O’Brien was great, too. I learned a lot about offense there. … A little bit of everything I’ve got, it’s added up and continued to help me improve.”
Houston bond remains
Faith has always been at the center of Keenum’s world. As others have kept believing in him, he has maintained his devotion in a higher guiding power.
“It’s the starting point of everything for me,” Keenum said. “If I’m not where I need to be or where I’m healthy spiritually, then I’m not where I need to be as a football player. If I’m not where I need to be spiritually, then I’m not where I need to be as a husband, as a friend, as a brother, as a son — all those things.”
As has a city that Keenum still calls home.
Even with the 10-2 Vikings heading to Carolina to face Cam Newton’s 8-4 Panthers, Minnesota’s No. 7 took time this week to reflect on his life bond with a city now proudly watching his success from afar.
“I love Houston,” Keenum said. “It broke my heart to see what happened this year with the flood, but it also filled me up with a lot of pride to see just videos of everybody in boats, helping each other out. The stories you hear and the videos you see and J.J. (Watt) raising all that money — just people coming together. It was cool to see.
“I’ve got a lot of pride. Still call Houston home, still rep Houston hard, and it means a lot. I’ve had a lot of people text and call and even come to games from Houston. So it’s been really cool.”
Almost as cool as Keenum, former Coog and ex-Texan, throwing himself into the middle of the NFL’s MVP race in 2017.