Case Keenum drives down a quiet back street in a tiny Minneapolis suburb and pulls his black pickup into the driveway, a fresh coating of the first snow he’s ever driven in crunching under the tires.

He parks in the first stall of a three-car garage and walks into his house through a door with a piece of white paper taped to the window that reads “YAY!” in purple. His neighbors had taken to leaving balloons outside of his garage after every Minnesota Vikings win, but there got to be too many of them so they had to dial it back a little bit.

The house is beautiful — white stucco with gray trim, a large, eat-in kitchen with a dining room just off to the side, vaulted ceilings and a 10-panel window in the living room that lets the lights from the Christmas tree sparkle into the front yard.

“Must be nice to be a quarterback, huh?” Vikings receiver Adam Thielen joked.

There are very few people in the Twin Cities who wouldn’t want to trade their homes for the one that Case and Kimberly Keenum are renting for the season. But a quick drive around the neighborhood, which abuts a posh country club that has played host to several major golf tournaments, and it becomes easy to overlook the Keenums’ house while craning your neck at some of the soaring roof lines and sprawling architecture that lord over the area.

“There are some monsters around here, aren’t there?” Case Keenum says.

In some ways, it’s the perfect Keenum house. Throughout his career, he has been more than just a journeyman quarterback. He put together the most prolific passing career college football has ever seen while at the University of Houston and started 24 games for the Texans and Rams over the previous four seasons, and his 78.4 rating during that time was higher than the career marks for notable names like Drew Bledsoe, Vinny Testaverde and Jake Plummer.

Vikings quarterback Case Keenum has had a career year to help the team to an 11-3 start. (Credit: Hannah Foslien/for The Athletic)

But coaches, general managers, fans and others have always seemed to look right past the 6-foot-1 Keenum in search of the next big thing — the stronger arm, the taller stature, the higher draft pick. The bigger yard, the granite countertops, the open floor plan.

The Vikings brought him in this summer as a place-holder backup for Sam Bradford while Teddy Bridgewater continued his comeback from a devastating knee injury. There was even some talk during training camp that the team could hold onto the younger Taylor Heinicke over the 29-year-old Keenum as its third quarterback.

Minnesota stuck with Keenum, a decision that has changed the course of its franchise, made dreams of playing a home Super Bowl realistic and maybe even saved a job or two along the way.

With Bradford out with a knee injury, Keenum has stepped in and played the best football of his life. He is completing 68 percent of his passes with 20 touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a 98.9 rating, leading the Vikings to an 11-3 record, second-best in the NFC.

His rise from a relatively anonymous insurance policy to a galvanizing force for one of the best teams in NFL makes Keenum the recipient of The Athletic Minnesota’s 2017 Person of the Year. It’s the latest accolade to be showered on a player who was an afterthought during training camp, the guy who was coming aboard to hold down the fort until Bridgewater was ready to play again, and the one whose job even appeared to be up for grabs as recently as a month ago.

Now he is getting standing ovations at Timberwolves games, is mobbed by fans after road victories and has solidified himself as The Man on a team with Super Bowl aspirations.

“I’ve had people tell me I couldn’t do this or do that for a long time,” Keenum says. “I had one scholarship offer out of high school, undrafted out of college. I’ve had a lot of naysayers in my time. I learned pretty early to ignore those people.

“For me, I play more to prove people — like my wife who believes in me, right, the coaches who coached me growing up, the coaches who coach me now, my family members, my friends who believed in me — I play more to prove them right than I do to prove those naysayers wrong. Not that it doesn’t feel good to prove them wrong, it’s more about proving people right than proving people wrong.”

A win in Atlanta on Dec. 3 made it eight straight for the Vikings. Keenum savored a victory lap after the game. (Credit: Jason Getz/USA TODAY Sports)

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Despite playing for his fourth team in the last four years, Keenum doesn’t buy into the journeyman label. He doesn’t really worry about labels at all, for good reason. If he did, he would have quit football a long time ago.

Keenum grew up in Abilene, Texas, and as a kid he palled around with a buddy named Brandon, who had a little sister named Kimberly. Case and Kimberly went to different high schools, but they regularly crossed paths at church, and it wasn’t long before it became “Kimberly and her older brother and not Brandon and his little sister,” Case says.

The two have been together ever since, with Kimberly helping Case memorize playbook after playbook as they have bounced around from Houston to St. Louis to Los Angeles and now to Minnesota. She watched him recover from a torn ACL in college to set NCAA career passing records for yards (19,217), touchdowns (155) and completions (1,546).

She watched him sign with the Texans after 11 quarterbacks were taken in the 2012 draft and go 0-8 when he was thrust into starting duty in his second season. She watched the Rams draft Jared Goff No. 1 overall to set the course for her husband’s eventual departure.

“All the years watching him, I feel like it’s been great,” she says. “People always talk about some negative stuff in the past, but I feel like he always played really, really well. I’ve always been just as proud as I am now.”

She chafes a little at the perception that Keenum has somehow pulled a rabbit out of a hat this season after years of struggle. To her, and to Case, it implies that this is some sort of fluke — much like the “system quarterback” explanation scouts gave for his incredible numbers at Houston.

“I don’t want to say I get annoyed with people talking like that, but I do,” she says. “He’s always been this great. I think he’s just got a great team around him now to help him showcase that.”

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“I’ve had people tell me I couldn’t do this or do that for a long time,” said Keenum, who threw for a career-high four touchdowns in a 38-30 in Washington on Nov. 12. (Credit: Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports)

Keenum went 4-5 for the Rams last season, completing 60 percent of his passes with nine TDs and 11 interceptions. He wasn’t terrible and he wasn’t great, but it was clear the Rams were just biding their time until Goff was ready to play.

He became a free agent for the first time last summer and drew mild interest from the Bills and Bears. He chose the Vikings not because of the climate or the role, necessarily, but because for maybe the first time in his football life, a team recruited him hard to join up.

“Just having a team come out and pursue me a little bit was nice,” Keenum says. “Coming to meet some of the coaches, talking to (offensive coordinator) Pat Shurmur and (quarterbacks coach) Kevin Stefanski, (head) coach (Mike) Zimmer about the team, the culture, the offense, the plays, it seemed like we were speaking the same language.”

Keenum didn’t know anyone on the team, but a Rams public relations staff member named Travis Langer connected some dots for him. Langer is a former Vikings intern and went to Minnesota State, Mankato with Thielen. So when Keenum signed, Langer reached out to Thielen and said he thought the two would hit it off.

Like Keenum, Thielen was undrafted and had to scratch his way onto a roster. Adam and Caitlin Thielen invited the Keenums for dinner and the two new teammates quickly meshed over a love of golf and an innate competitiveness that shines through on Sundays.

Thielen is now widely viewed as an elite receiver in the league and Keenum has gotten some consideration for league MVP. Not bad for two guys who have been overlooked since they were teenagers.

“It’s just easy,” Kimberly says, looking at Case. “I wouldn’t even call either one of you underdogs. You’re both just really hard workers and just bonded. There’s just some people you click with and you just clicked.”

Right at home in Minnesota After four seasons struggling with the Texans and Rams, Case Keenum has had a

career year leading the Vikings, who at 11-3 are NFC North champions. Timeframe Cmp-Att/G CMP% TD-INT Rate Y/G W-L* Pre-Vikings

2013-16 17.5-29.9 58.4 24-20 78.4 200.1 9-17 With Vikings

2017 22.3-32.8 67.9 20-7 98.9 247.6 10-3 * Includes all games played in

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It was clear from time Keenum arrived that the Vikings were Bradford’s team. It was also clear that most of the decision-makers had high hopes that Bridgewater would be ready to play at some point this season after more than a year of rehabilitation, should they need another quarterback.

Bradford was nearly perfect in the team’s season-opening victory over New Orleans, but a right knee that has been surgically repaired twice in his career started to swell up after the game, and with Bridgewater still on the physically unable to perform list, Keenum was pressed into duty in Pittsburgh in Week 2.

During a 26-9 loss to the Steelers the offense was out of sync. Keenum’s dropbacks were hurried, his yards-per-attempt was a paltry 4.51 and no one looked comfortable.

“You could say that it wasn’t as comfortable as we feel now,” Keenum says. “You get experience with guys, you get continuity going. It was just such a weird situation too, Sam battling the injury, a lot more unknown then. I just had to learn how to take it a week at a time, not pay attention to anything else.”

He rebounded with a stellar game in a victory over Tampa Bay the next week, lost a home game to division rival Detroit the following week and rescued the Vikings in a 20-17 victory in Chicago on Oct. 9, when an ineffective Bradford was pulled after struggling through the first half.

A pattern developed over about five weeks of Keenum playing exceedingly well and then doing just enough to win. All the while, Bridgewater was working his way back to health and making it clear that he thought he would be ready to step in if need be.

Bridgewater was cleared to practice on Oct. 16 and declared that week that he “definitely” planned to play in 2017. Zimmer backed the quarterback that he drafted in 2014, and when Bridgewater was activated to the 53-man roster for the game against the Redskins on Nov. 12, it seemed like only a matter of time before Keenum was put back on the sideline.

With yet another young, first-round draft pick breathing down his neck, Keenum stepped forward with the best football of his life.

In the first four games after Bridgewater was activated, Keenum completed 74 percent of his passes for 1,093 yards, nine touchdowns, two interceptions and a rating of 116.7.

To put those numbers in context, Tom Brady over the same four-game span completed 73 percent of his passes for 1,091 yards, 10 touchdowns, two picks and a 117.4 rating.

“The entire receiver corps is the best I’ve been around, top to bottom,” Keenum says. “The offensive line is playing great. Running backs, Dalvin (Cook) had a heck of a year going and the guys stepped up when he went down. We’ve had some great guys playing really well at a lot of positions. And, oh by the way, our defense is pretty salty too.”

“He’s always been this great,” Keenum’s wife, Kimberly, said. “I think he’s just got a great team around him now to help him showcase that.” (Credit: Hannah Foslien/for The Athletic)

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When the Vikings beat Atlanta two weeks ago, it was their eighth-straight victory with Keenum under center, a fitting reversal for a quarterback who suffered so much during an 0-8 start to his career with the Texans, who went winless in their final 14 games that season.

“This league, you put so much into it,” he says. “As a kid, you want to go to the NFL and do all these things. You want it so bad. When it doesn’t go your way, it’s tough. It can feel sometimes like everything is just weighing in on you.”

“It’s hard to see your husband struggle,” Kimberly says. “When we lost that many in a row, that was really hard. Just keep encouraging and try to uplift him. Build him up, that’s part of my job.”

There were days during that skid, and some before that when he was rehabbing a torn ACL while in college, that Keenum wondered if he was ever going to fulfill all the potential he believed he had.

“I think there’s always parts of yourself that maybe mentally you wander down different paths that aren’t healthy,” he says. “Realizing what you’re thinking, what you’re doing … we’re all human, right?”

The couple leaned on their devout faith during those times of trial and now they find themselves leaning on it just as much to stay grounded while the world comes calling for the upstart quarterback with the rags-to-riches story.

“We’ve been through the other side of this, the down swings,” Keenum says. “Those times are what makes these times feel so good. I appreciate these times. I appreciate the other times that have taught me to take a minute and enjoy this. We’re enjoying it.”

In Case you didn’t know… Vikings fans are the best in the world. #Skol pic.twitter.com/Pi7yP5Rxcy — Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) December 3, 2017

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A guy who prefers to fly under the radar is suddenly the toast of the town. After beating the Lions on Thanksgiving to go to 9-2 on the season, the Keenums and Thielens returned home to take in a Timberwolves game the next night.

When Keenum was shown on the big screen and introduced, a thunderous roar came from the sellout crowd, offering the kind of warm embrace he has not experienced elsewhere as a professional.

“Especially after the first couple games that he was winning, I don’t think he had a whole lot of respect from the fans,” Thielen says. “It was pretty cool after him continuing to show he can play at a high level. It was cool to see the fans giving him that respect and people excited about what he was doing.”

Keenum signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the Vikings last summer. If the two sides do not come to agreement on a new contract this season, he will be a free agent again. This time there will likely be a lot more suitors lining up for his services and a lot more money coming his way.

The couple thinks back to all the houses they’ve rented over the last six years, all the grocery stores they’ve needed Google maps to help them find.

A trip to London yielded a nice souvenir. (Credit: Hannah Foslien/for The Athletic)

“You’ve got to be flexible,” Kimberly says. “We’ve moved so much. We grew up in Texas. So our first time to get called to move to St. Louis was scary.”

“L.A. was even scarier,” Case says.

Now here they are in Minnesota. They had not seen much snow before they arrived here, but sitting on their white couch and looking out into the front yard, the two look … comfortable.

“We’d love to stay,” Case says.

“We would,” Kimberly echoes.

“The first six or eight months we’ve been here, it’s been great,” Case says. “We understand how the NFL works, but we love it here. We love the city, love the people here, love the organization. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

There are plenty of factors involved, including Bridgewater’s health and future with the franchise. But if the Keenums do stay, the contract that keeps them here might have them looking for a new place to call home.

In Kimberly’s eyes, Case has always been that monster of a house, the one that causes the cars to slow down as the drives crane their necks in awe.

All they needed was the right neighborhood.

(Top image: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)