MINNEAPOLIS — About an hour and a half before his playoff debut, Minnesota quarterback Case Keenum came bounding out of the tunnel at U.S. Bank Stadium, a bundle of kinetic energy, pumping fists and slapping hands and bumping chests. He anticipated feeling nervous — he always is, he said last week — but a good nervous, an excited nervous, a carpe-diem kind of nervous.
He had been waiting his entire peripatetic career for a moment like the one that came Sunday, when Keenum had 25 seconds left to rescue his defense, to demonstrate that his remarkable season was more revelation than fluke, to lift the trailing Vikings — and a fan base grated by playoff despair — to victory against the New Orleans Saints.