Bryant McKinnie says his mission is to protect Brett Favre

The Vikings play 16 regular-season games, but tonight's opener in New Orleans against a Saints team that ended its 2009 season in January in the Superdome is anything but only one of 16 games.

"It's a little more than that," offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie said with a smile. "(Last season), it was like you're in a fight with somebody and you're winning the fight, then one knockout blow just takes you out."

This time, the 6-foot-8, 335-pound McKinnie said the Vikings' offensive line needs to do a better job of protecting quarterback Brett Favre from late hits by the Saints. Favre took a merciless beating in the 31-28 NFC title-game loss.

"They had a lot of late hits last year and some things that probably didn't get called," McKinnie said of the Saints. "So we've got to protect him all around."

McKinnie said he wasn't aware of the beating that Favre absorbed until he saw it on TV.

"When you're in the game, you're not really paying attention to that because you're blocking or doing something else," he said.

McKinnie said, because of the crowd noise in the Superdome, he'll probably wear earplugs for the rematch, as he did in last year's game.

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(twincities.com)