The Vikings needed a miracle against the Saints ... they got a beautiful one

This has been a season of improbable storylines for Minnesota, and now they are one victory away from a Super Bowl in their own backyard

In 51 years of Super Bowls no team has ever played for football’s championship on their home field. The closest were the Los Angeles Rams, who in their previous run as tenants of the LA Coliseum, lost the 1980 Super Bowl in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, 26 miles away.

But throughout this improbable Minnesota Vikings season, the one that fell their way after rival quarterback Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone, the Vikings have quietly eyed the Super Bowl that will be played on home turf. And in a season that has made no sense, where they had the NFC’s second-best record with a quarterback nobody much wanted, they came up with a miraculous final play to beat New Orleans 29-24 on Sunday, putting them one game from a Super Bowl in their stadium.

Since such stories always take on an ethereal tone, it’s only fitting that the game-winning play was named: “7 Heaven”. What else could it be called?

The Vikings were done in their NFC division round game against the Saints on Sunday. Even with their home crowd roaring so loud in the soaring, cathedral-like US Bank Stadium that once unwanted quarterback, Case Keenum, later said he couldn’t hear himself think, New Orleans led 24-23 with 14 seconds to play and the Vikings on their own 39-yard line.

Before he ran 7 Heaven, Keenum looked at his receivers and said: “I’m going to give someone a chance.”

Stefon Diggs would later say he hoped it would be him. Then it was. The ball came down from the stadium lights near the right sideline, there were two Saints defenders near Diggs as he jumped but he thought if he could just catch the ball, they might miss and he could scamper downfield far enough to give the Vikings a shot at a game winning field goal. He felt the ball hit his hands and waited for a New Orleans player to knock him out of bounds. No one did. Moments later the Vikings had one of the greatest wins in playoff history.

“I couldn’t believe what was happening,” Keenum said in his postgame press conference. “It was awesome.”

Who can believe anything about this Vikings season? After the game, Diggs stood at his postgame press conference and marveled at an offense filled with castaways pulled from the scrap heap. Diggs himself was once a high school superstar who went to his local college, the University of Maryland, only to be hurt for much of his time there. He tumbled to the fifth-round in the draft but has quietly grown into one of Minnesota’s most dependable receivers.

Keenum wasn’t supposed to be here either. He was replaced by Jared Goff at the Rams last year and was signed to be a back-up behind Sam Bradford and Teddy Bridgewater, who was returning from a gruesome knee injury. But then Bradford was hurt the first game and Bridgewater wasn’t ready so Keenum became the starter and steadily led Minnesota to a division title. He stood in the team’s interview room after the game with a sport coat over a hooded sweatshirt and kept laughing. Why wouldn’t he? None of it made much sense.

Now the Vikings with one of the NFC’s best defenses and a thrown-together offense go to Philadelphia for a chance to get one last game in their home stadium this season.

Sometimes nothing makes sense.

Sometimes you call a need-a-miracle play with a celestial name and heave the ball hoping for the best.

And sometimes that play works in ways no one can understand. Even when 7 Heaven beats a team called the Saints. And the real miracle of the Vikings becoming the first team to host a Super Bowl is suddenly very real.

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