EAGAN — When the Minnesota Vikings take the field against New Orleans in their preseason opener, Irv Smith Jr. will be the latest but nowhere close to the last person in the country to commemorate his 21st birthday with a visit to the Big Easy.

For Smith, though, this Friday night awaits as a truly unforgettable occasion.

The rookie tight end will not only celebrate another year of life but make his NFL debut in the same stadium where his father spent most of his professional career in front of a host of family and friends in the city he calls home.

“It’s crazy how everything worked out,” Smith said.

Selected in the second round of the draft out of Alabama, the 6-foot-2, 242-pound Smith was born after his dad, Irv Smith Sr., left the Saints after five seasons. Smith Sr. played his last two years in the league with San Francisco and Cleveland, respectively.

The future football player son was just an infant then, so the memories of having a father in the NFL have been shaped largely by household memorabilia and internet searches. That doesn’t make him any less proud, of course. He’s determined, too, to establish a longer and better career than his pops.

Long before the statistics are added up, well, there are training camp stories to tell.

“When he was with the Saints, they had to go all the way to Wisconsin,” Smith said, alluding to the annual trip the Saints made from 1988-1999 to escape steamy Louisiana for the northern section of the Mississippi River valley in the bluff-lined college town of La Crosse. “I was like, ‘Why would you all go to Wisconsin?’ He was like, ‘You don’t ask. You just go.’ I thought that was funny.”

After developing at a pro-caliber college program, Smith has advanced to an organization with sparkling facilities as state-of-the-art as any in the league. His dad?