In January Pat O'Donnell Jersey , Case Keenum was part of one of the great plays in NFL history when he completed the Minneapolis Miracle, the touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs on the last play of the Vikings’ playoff win over the Saints. Now Keenum is the Broncos’ quarterback, and he gave fans in Denver a fantastic breakdown of the play, both from an Xs and Os perspective, and from a human perspective.

Keenum was at an event for Broncos season ticket holders when he was asked about the play, and he then spent several minutes at a whiteboard explaining every element of it.

In the Vikings’ playbook, the play was known as “Gun buffalo right key left 7 heaven.” Keenum first explained what that means.

“Buffalo is our formation. It’s three-by-one but it’s a ‘B’ word — buffalo — so that’s a bunch, and there’s an ‘f’ in it so that means the f is at the point,” Keenum said. “Key left is the protection, which means it’s a six-man protection, they’re going to block six.”

Keenum made a point of praising the protection he got, especially in a late-game situation where 300-pound offensive linemen are running down the field in the no-huddle offense.

“The offensive line blocked their tails off. In these situations, two-minute, these defensive ends . . . they know it’s a pass so they’re literally in a track stance and they’re just rushing as fast as it can. So it started there. They were incredible,” Keenum said of his offensive linemen.

Keenum then went through his progressions and explained that he saw three other options before deciding to throw to Diggs.

“I had my guy Adam Thielen at X and he had a 7 route. The first part of that play call was 7, so he had a 7 route, which was a corner route. He had more than his share of defenders. He ran a 7 route, I really wanted to throw to him Peyton Manning Jersey , but he was covered up,” Keenum said. “On this side we layer it. There’s three layers. Kyle Rudolph, who was at Y, he runs the quick out to the sideline. Our F, Jarius Wright, he runs an intermediate out route. And Stefon, who’s at Z, he’s got the high angle 7 heaven. There’s no timeouts left, we’re at our 39, and I remember calling the play and saying, ‘Guys, I’m going to give one of you a chance.'”

Keenum stressed that everyone on the Vikings’ offense was exhausted, given the furious pace of the final minutes of that game.

“They had just run all the way down the field and then they had to run back, and these guys are blocking their tails off, and they know I have to hold onto the ball to let these guys get down the field,” Keenum said.

Saints rookie free safety Marcus Williams was widely viewed as the villain of the play in New Orleans. Keenum praised Williams but acknowledged that it was Williams’ breakdown in coverage that keyed the big play.

“The rookie safety is a great player, had an awesome year, but he was beat Dan Skuta Jersey , so Stefon just flattened the angle a little bit,” Keenum said. “I just threw it to the sideline. I remember I lost vision of him a little bit behind my right guard and I couldn’t really see. I knew the ball came out of my hand really, really well. Sometimes it comes out good and this came out great — I knew it was right where I wanted to put it. But I couldn’t see where Stefon was. And all of a sudden I see Stefon’s hands, his white gloves, just coming out of nowhere, and I’m like, ‘He’s gonna catch this ball.’ And he catches it. And I tell you, I’ve been in some loud stadiums, but . . . they went crazy. I mean it was nuts. It was the loudest I’ve ever heard. I’ve been in Seattle, I’ve been in Kansas City, where they set the world record for loudest outdoor stadium, but it was loud. It was so loud.”

For an instant it looked like Diggs would step out of bounds to give the Vikings a chance at a last-second field goal. That’s what the receivers had been instructed to do, but Diggs saw a clear path to the end zone and disregarded those instructions.

“Everybody was yelling the same thing I was: ‘Get out of bounds,'” Keenum said. “And he comes down and he turns back inside and this guy [Williams] overshoots it. I don’t see any of that happen. I see Stefon fall and put his hand down and I’m like, ‘No! Get out of bounds!’ And then he starts running toward the end zone and he never gets tackled, and I don’t know what’s going on.”

Keenum still finds himself shocked at how the game ended.

“You talk about the best moment? It was an unbelievable moment,” Keenum said. “I still don’t believe it sometimes, that it happened. It was so crazy.”
The Vegas Golden Knights chose to celebrate a monumental moment for the franchise by thinking back to how its inaugural season began – hoping the new hockey team could bring smiles to a city reeling from tragedy.

Shortly after Vegas became the first expansion team to clinch a playoff berth with a 4-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night Leonard Floyd Jersey , the mantra in the locker room was the same as the one adopted shortly before the team’s home opener:

”Vegas Strong.”

Team owner Bill Foley, veteran goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and leading scorer William Karlsson were among those who thought back Monday to the Oct. 1 mass shooting that killed 58 and injured hundreds more on the Las Vegas Strip.

”It was a disaster that night, it was a terrible massacre, we changed our initial opening night ceremonies, I thought we really connected with the town – I’m so proud of the whole team,” Foley said. ”From then on, it was pretty unbelievable. We got off to that fast start. We’ve survived a lot of challenges this year, besides being an expansion team who nobody picked to do anything.”

No expansion team had ever made the playoffs since the league expanded for the 1967-68 season.

”It doesn’t bring anybody back or we don’t heal anybody,” Fleury said. ”But I hope that we’ve changed people’s mind a bit and get them to come here and have a good time at T-Mobile (Arena) and be proud of their hometown team.”

Alex Tuch, Jonathan Marchessault, Shea Theodore and Karlsson each scored, while Fleury improved to 28-11-4 after stopping 28 shots.

It was also the 200th career victory for coach Gerard Gallant.

”I’m really happy about making the playoffs, the 200th win doesn’t mean a whole lot,” Gallant said. ”We always go back to our first home game. It wasn’t about our team winning, it wasn’t about nothing – it was about the first responders and the tragedy that happened the week before that.

”It was a tough way to start our season, but I think the guys and everybody supported it well. They all came out and played an unbelievable game that first night and I just think it carried over.”

The Golden Knights host San Jose on Saturday and are six points in front of the Sharks in the Pacific Division. San Jose beat Chicago in overtime earlier Monday.

Erik Johnson scored for the Avalanche and Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves.

Colorado is 11-7-3 against the Pacific Division and dropped to 7-3-3 in March. The Avalanche are still riding a 9-3-3 streak but had a three-game road winning streak snapped.

The Avalanche are fourth in the Central Division but dropped to the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, just behind Los Angeles, which beat Calgary.

”I’m not going to talk about a first-round (playoff) matchup Jamison Crowder Jersey , we gotta get there first,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. ”I would have liked to add another point or two tonight, but we weren’t able to get it done.”

Tuch was in the right spot on Vegas’ first power play to punch home a loose puck and give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead. Colorado tied it when Johnson was there to fire in a rebound.

Vegas went back up 2-1 when Marchessault beat Varlamov with a slick wrist shot. Vegas has scored with a man advantage in 20 of its last 31 games. Since Jan. 21, the Golden Knights lead the league with a power-play percentage of 30.4.

The Golden Knights wasted no time in extending their lead in the third period, when Erik Haula fed a streaking Theodore, who put one past Varlamov at the 1:31 mark.

Karlsson closed out the scoring with an empty-net goal, his 40th of the season.

”It feels pretty incredible, it’s good to clinch it at home ice,” Karlsson said. ”It’s been a fun ride, obviously winning helps it. We had a great start and that set us off for the rest of the year. I think the whole city came together, the fans have been great, and they’ve helped us a lot. They fired us up and it was momentum all the way.”

NOTES: The Avalanche had three players skate in milestone games, as Landeskog played in his 500th game, Tyson Barrie played in his 400th, and Gabriel Bourque notched his 300th. … Vegas’ James Neal is now three games shy of his 700th. … Marchessault became the 10th player in NHL history to record 70 points while playing for a team in its inaugural season. … The 18,326 in attendance was the third-largest crowd of the season.

UP NEXT

Colorado: Returns home to host Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

Vegas: Hosts Arizona on Wednesday night.

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