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Drew Brees will lead the New Orleans offense onto the field at Minnesota and commence the 13th postseason game of his stellar career [url=http://www.neworleanssaintsteamonline.com/cameron-jordan-jersey]Authentic Cameron Jordan Jersey[/url] , already armed with seven such victories and one Super Bowl ring for the Saints.

”I prepare for every game as if it’s that magnitude,” Brees said.

”When you’re in games of that magnitude, it’s as if you’ve been there and done it many times before, even if it was just in your mind.”

For Case Keenum, it’s truly all in his mind.

His first start in the NFL playoffs will come when the Vikings kick off their divisional round game on Sunday.

”I’m going to play like I know how to play. I don’t have to be anybody but myself. Not more conservative or less conservative. Either way, I’m going to be me,” said Keenum, whose successful takeover for the injured Sam Bradford helped lead the Vikings (13-3) to their best record in 19 years. ”That’s all I have to be. I’ve got a great squad in this room.”

Solely measuring quarterback experience and accomplishment, the Saints have a clear advantage over the Vikings in this divisional round game to help determine the matchup in the NFC championship game. Keenum, though, has been overcoming the odds all season, let alone his career .

”I always root for guys like that. Kind of the undersized guy that is coming out and nobody wants to give him any credit and always plays with a chip on his shoulder,” Brees said.

Though he was drafted by the San Diego Chargers in the second round in 2001 out of Purdue, with Keenum going undrafted out of Houston and needing the Texans practice squad to get his career going in 2012, Brees can relate. He’s shorter than the NFL standard for their position, too. Oh, and they’re both from Texas.

Brees added another highlight last week, with 376 passing yards to help the Saints (12-5) advance with a 31-26 victory over Carolina while the Vikings had a bye.

”Just a guy that I really admire in how he moves the ball down the field and how he operates, what kind of leader he is,” Keenum said.

”I read his book a long time ago. I think he’s someone to learn from. I try to watch all of the really good quarterbacks in the offseason and take little things to try to work on my game.”

Here are some other angles to follow with the game:

SLOWED UP: The Pro Bowl pair of Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara had the least productive combined performance for the Saints against Carolina, with just 68 total yards from scrimmage. They each had more than 1,500 total yards in 2017.

The Panthers brought one safety closer to the line of the scrimmage to spy on the running back, and it worked.

”This league is a copy-cat league so I wouldn’t be surprised if Minnesota did it,” Kamara said [url=http://www.neworleanssaintsteamonline.com/cameron-jordan-jersey]Womens Cameron Jordan Jersey[/url] , expressing no concern about the strategy by pointing to Brees, whose passing yardage total against the Panthers was his second-highest of the season.

The Vikings, led by the speed of linebackers Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks, have held several pass-catching running backs to minimal production this season.

LINE ITEM: The Saints will be without starting left guard Andrus Peat, a versatile former first-round draft choice who also filled in for Terron Armstead at left tackle this season when he was injured. Peat broke his fibula against the Panthers.

Senio Kelemete, who has filled in at both guard spots and right tackle this season, is slated to start for Peat. Armstead, meanwhile, said he’s never been close to 100 percent healthy this season.

”But it doesn’t matter,” Armstead said. ”I’m willing and able to put my body on the line for an opportunity to play again next week.”

ZONED OUT: New Orleans defensive coordinator Dennis Allen called for a relatively zone-heavy scheme in the opener, and rookie cornerback Marshon Lattimore recalled feeling ”confused about everything” in his NFL debut other than the man-to-man coverage the Saints have been more inclined to let Lattimore play on top opposing receivers. He had five interceptions and was picked for the Pro Bowl.

”That was something that we felt like in that game was going to give us a chance to win the game, and obviously we didn’t play as well as we needed to,” Allen said of Minnesota’s 29-19 victory fueled by a career-best 143.0 passer rating for Bradford . ”Obviously, we’ve looked at that game and how we’ve changed and how we’ve evolved as a defense.”

SUPER BOWL ENVY: New Orleans’ bid for the Super Bowl this season and was considered a favorite given the city is celebrating its 300th anniversary and has long been a popular host for the NFL’s marquee event. But Minnesota’s bid, combining its new stadium and winter carnival approach to related festivities, won out.

Now the Vikings have an opportunity to become the first team to play a Super Bowl on home turf, a feat the Saints would be happy to deny.

”If we want to add a little underlying story to us trying to win this game, it would be nice to be able to do that,” Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins said.

”We’ve always talked about, `We want to start the season at Minnesota. We want to end the season in Minnesota,’ and for us that means playing in the Super Bowl.”

SITE MAP: The Saints are 1-6 in their history in the playoffs on the road, including 1-4 under coach Sean Payton. Their first and only such win came after the 2013 season, when they edged the Eagles in a wild-card round game in Philadelphia before losing the following week At heart, Ernie Barnes the professional football player was always Ernie Barnes the artist.

His teammates on the San Diego Chargers nicknamed him ”Big Rembrandt” because he was always scribbling on pieces of paper.

He ended up painting vivid and highly acclaimed images from the playing field and from African-American life. He’s most famous for ”Sugar Shack [url=http://www.newyorkgiantsteamonline.com/odell-beckham-jr-jersey]Authentic Odell Beckham Jr Jersey[/url] ,” which shows African-Americans dancing at the Durham Armory. Marvin Gaye used a version of it for an album cover, and a print of it appeared in the closing credits of the sitcom ”Good Times.”

Now, an exhibit has opened in his home state titled “The North Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes.” The exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History includes 38 paintings by Barnes, many unseen by the public until now, along with several pieces of memorabilia.

It’s the first exhibit of Barnes’ artwork in 11 years, and the first since he died at age 70 in 2009 in Los Angeles. It continues through March 3.

Barnes never considered football his true calling. From his childhood, he was drawn to art. In his 1995 autobiography, ”From Pads to Palette,” he wrote, ”Throughout my five seasons in the arena of professional football, I remained at the deepest level of my being an artist.”

But he played professionally from 1960 to 1964, signing first with the Baltimore Colts and then with the Titans of New York, the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos. His sports connections led to his first exhibit through the support of New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin. And Barnes credited football with helping him develop the elongation technique for which he’s known.

An art instructor told him ”to pay attention to what my body felt like in movement,” Barnes once said. ”And when I did that, it was an elongated feeling. … I hate to think, had I not played sports, what my work would look like.”

He also spoke of how the ”dehumanization” of professional football played out in his art. ”I painted until I exhausted the hate,” he said, according to comments provided by his estate.

Troy Vincent, the NFL’s vice president of operations, is probably the largest collector of Barnes’ art and someone in whom Barnes confided about his love-hate relationship with football. Vincent estimates that he owns just shy of 30 Barnes’ paintings, most of them commissioned and never seen by the public.

In a phone interview, Vincent said that he and his wife ”didn’t classify it as black art. He happens to be African-American, but it’s not black art. It’s art.”

At the time of Barnes’ death [url=http://www.newyorkgiantsteamonline.com/odell-beckham-jr-jersey]Womens Odell Beckham Jr Jersey[/url] , Paul Von Blum, an art history and African American studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called him one of the premier figurative artists of his era.

Barnes, who was born in 1938 in Durham during the Jim Crow era, graduated from what’s now North Carolina Central University. His painting, ”Homecoming,” shows a marching band in Durham with U.S. 15-501 signs in the background.

”Ernie said when he was growing up, the high school band used to come down from the segregated area and make the turn into the black community, and the band would kick it up right there,” Luz Rodriguez, his longtime assistant and estate trustee said last week in Raleigh before the exhibit opened. ”So that’s what he painted.”

”Sugar Shack” came from Barnes’ memories growing up in Durham, Rodriguez said. His mother had told the 13-year-old Barnes that ”they don’t do Christian things there” so of course he had to sneak in to find out what was happening, she said.

Actor and comedian Eddie Murphy owns the painting now, exhibit curator Katie Edwards said. A second version that Barnes painted is part of the North Carolina museum exhibit.

Barnes could bring to life ”the hopes and dreams of what could be – families together, strong men, strong women, the true representation of the godly family,” Vincent said. Barnes was able to ”share our dark past yet articulate in color what the future could be – the proudness of our history, the proudness of our future. Ernie encapsulated all of that.”

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