Minnesota Vikings 23, Houston Texans 23
KIRK COUSINS: Great to watch the effort all game long and offensively I was pleased with how balanced they were, really similar to last week in that sense. I felt like we ran the ball throughout the entire game effectively and then we were pretty efficient throwing the football, or so it seemed. So I was pleased, also, with just the play-makers. I thought that Justin and Adam made plays, Dalvin and Alex made plays. I thought Rudy made a couple big plays and just great to see players making plays, making things happen and proud of how we came down here after the week, threw us a curveball and got a win on the road and was able to put it all together as a team.
You know, just proud of our team and there are certainly things we can improve on, you know, I'd love to be able to just end the game there, on the go ball throw to Adam and put it out a little farther. Another third down throw I'd love to have back. You have those throws that you want back because all in all I thought it was a pretty efficient performance and we'll try to build on that now and see if we can get on a run.
But I'll take any questions you have.
Q. Kirk, you mentioned the play-makers, does this feel like a blueprint for the offense to lean on those three guys?
KIRK COUSINS: I think it's week-to-week. I think you can certainly expect Justin and Adam and Dalvin to be big contributors every week, but if we're not running the ball well, maybe we take to the air more, instead of having 25 attempts, we have 45 and to lean more on Chad or Irv. When we're able to run the football, you're not going to have as many attempts and that means Dalvin and Alex are going to get quite a bit of opportunities. You have to credit our offensive line for the run game they are putting out because it's been really effective.
Q. Can you talk about how key those two drives were after they cut it to 17 to 16 and you got the touchdowns to kind of regain control of the game 31 to 16?
KIRK COUSINS: Yes, that was critical. I think in between our defense had a stop, as well, which was big. So you kind of build off one another. I think our team, like starting the game when our defense gets them to have to punt quickly, I think that helps our offense, and we had great field position all game long, too, which was a huge positive. I think the field position is kind of an underrated aspect of having a good day offensively and I felt like we were rarely backed up, if at all and that enabled us to get into field goal range quickly. That was certainly a big couple series to be able to pull away a little bit.
Q. Knowing how good your time of possession was, did it feel better having that much more time to complete drives and see things through more than the first three weeks?
KIRK COUSINS: I think sustaining drives was a big part of that. Again, running the football effectively is a big part of that, but you know, we were able to put together longer drives and our defense got off the field on several occasions which also helped us have more opportunities. Certainly it helped to control the ball as much as we.
Q. The throw to Jefferson late in the game, how much time does it take to develop trust with a young receiver where you know where he's going to be and you trust him to make that catch there?
KIRK COUSINS: That's a funny question because when I came off the sideline after the drive, Manning said, you been working on back shoulders to Justin? In other words, we don't have -- we don't have all that time or years banked so at some point, you just got to play, and believe that he can do it and after he adjusted and finished the play, I looked at whoever I was with, Dalvin or Adam as we were moving up the field, and said, 18 can play, that's not easy to do. Yeah, are we going to build trust over time? Yes, we are going to build trust but some of the things he's doing, there is no trust, it's just raw ability and you're putting the ball out there and hoping, believing, that he's going to make it happen.
Q. Mike said there was a point where he turned to Kubiak and said, don't be afraid to be aggressive. How much of that translated to you?
KIRK COUSINS: I didn't -- he's not telling me that so I'm just running the plays that are called but I no know that Coach Zimmer has a tremendous amount of trust in Gary and rightly so, and I think that helps our entire team and unit really play with confidence because I think Gary has earned that trust over a long time. Gary knows what he's doing and he and Rick are a big reason why we've had success running the football last couple years and why we've been able to put up 35 points three of four weeks, so I trust them and I just say, you know, tell me what to do, I'll go do it, and I believe that if I just do what they are coaching me to do that good things will happen.
Q. What can this win mean for this team right now at this point in the season?
KIRK COUSINS: One game isn't going to do anything for us -- nice to get a win and head in the right direction but each week is its own entity and we have to string something together for it to mean something and that's what's ahead for --
Q. Inaudible.
KIRK COUSINS: We got the look we wanted and that's largely why it wanted, we did a great job blocking it and I think Chad had to block somebody three times his size and he held up well and that's what enabled me to get to the edge and get us a first down. I would have liked to get my balance and gone down the sideline -- again just a really good play design by Gary and Rick being able to call that and add another wrinkle.
Q. After Harrison went down -- you played mad -- aside from Jefferson, there was one of those runs where it was Cook and then Thielen and you and it seemed to come out in that moment?
KIRK COUSINS: This team and this organization has always kept fighting and been resilient when their backs have been against the wall and I go back to, you know, last few years, so today I do think played with the resiliency I was proud of and made plays, but again, we can play better in the last ten minutes. I should be able to hit that throw. Our defense shouldn't have to go back out on the field and get that stop. We take pride in not having them do that. As we move forward there's so much to improve upon in the last few minutes of the game to be able to close games on offense and not ask our defense to do what they had to do today.
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