JUST IN: Once more, a Vikings player is experiencing a major breakthrough, but the team shouldn’t be shocked with…..

Although Case Keenum is experiencing the ultimate breakthrough, we shouldn’t be shocked.

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — The man in the ski cap and hoodie was staring through a window at the new purple banner announcing the Minnesota Vikings’ division crown. From behind, as he stood in a cafeteria, this average-size Joe could have passed for a food-service worker or a fan who had won a contest for a tour of the team facility. Case Keenum does not look like a quarterback drafted by an NFL team for a damn good reason: He wasn’t.

It was a Tuesday, the players’ off day following their division-clinching beatdown of the Cincinnati Bengals in mid-December, and an operations crew had just hung the banner in the rafters two minutes earlier. Keenum doesn’t believe in off days, so he was the first to see this tribute to the 2017 NFC North champs — the last of its kind to hang over the indoor practice field in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, ID’d on the street corner by a tattered Viking ship encased in snow and ice. The team will pack everything later this winter and move to upgraded digs in Eagan, about 20 miles to the east. Nobody is sure whether Keenum will be along for the ride.

And that’s fine and dandy for now. Keenum is not thinking about free agency — whether he might head to another franchise in a package deal with offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, or if Minnesota could still prefer the returning Sam Bradford and/or the returned Teddy Bridgewater as its 2018 starter. Short term? Keenum is thinking about beating the New Orleans Saints in Sunday’s divisional round matchup at U.S. Bank Stadium. Not-so-short term? Keenum is thinking about becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to lead a team ont o its own field with a chance to win the Super Bowl.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be sitting here in February and watch somebody else play in it,” Keenum said. He retreated a bit from that statement, swearing that the team wasn’t looking ahead at a magical shot to earn the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship, in its own building, after four losses in the big game and no appearances since the 1976 season. Keenum apologized for the cliché, but said the Vikings were taking it day by day. If there’s anyone who knows that NFL life is a day-to-day proposition, it’s the quarterback of the NFC’s No. 2 seed.

Keenum’s striped gray ski cap was pulled tight over his hair and ears and down to his eyebrows, making him appropriately hard to recognize. He’s the improbable leader of a faceless contender, and maybe he represents the look and the formula that will finally deliver these earnest Minnesotans their long, lost ring. The Vikings have had Hall of Fame quarterbacks, quarterbacks who won Super Bowls for other franchises and former top overall draft picks.

But the Vikings have never had a quarterback quite like Casey Austin Keenum — undrafted, unwanted, un-everything — who led them to a 13-3 record as the second-most-accurate passer in the league (67.6 percent). Of the quarterbacks starting playoff games this season, Keenum had the best regular-season Total QBR at 69.6 — second only to the now-injured Carson Wentz’s 75.7, and better than Tom Brady’s 67.2. Football Outsiders ranked Keenum ahead of Brady as the NFL’s top quarterback in 2017 in DVOA, a metric that measures a player’s value per snap over an average player at his position.

Not bad for a former practice-squad arm for the Houston Texans and a fired starter for the Los Angeles Rams who signed with the Vikings in March with a 9–15 career record with upside they believed was worth a meager $2 million plus incentives for a one-year contract. However, neither Keenum nor his fans are surprised by this incredible run; they were just as perplexed when he received only one Division I offer after high school as they were when he was not selected in the 2012 NFL Draft. Keenum is more motivated to prove the true believers correct than he is to disprove the skeptics.

Every week, there are more and more believers. Regardless of the outcome against the Saints on Sunday, Keenum has already made a significant amount of money for himself this season. That much is acknowledged by everyone in the Vikings organization, even if some would prefer not to make the payment. After seeing six recent game films of Keenum, an executive from a different team forecasted that a team would likely give him $20 million annually, and that if the Vikings offered him $15 million a year, the quarterback would probably take the offer.

“He’s playing at a Pro Bowl level,” the executive said. “He’s put himself in the same conversation as Kirk Cousins. His film is excellent. He’s got a live arm, accurate, accurate on three levels, good mobility, tough, smart. I didn’t give him a good grade out of college, but his tape this year is outstanding. He’s playing like a real quarterback — a borderline franchise guy — not a journeyman. You watch six games this year and you say, ‘Holy s—, look how good Case Keenum is.”

Surprised scouts and coaches have been saying that for years, but the secret to Keenum’s success isn’t much of a secret at all. He has overcome his modest physical gifts as a 6-foot-1 quarterback with a fearless approach to competition and life that was clear long before he started wowing Wylie High School football fans under Friday night lights in Abilene, Texas. In fact, Keenum didn’t first declare his bold spirit on a football field, but in the middle of a Costa Rican jungle.