Vikings 24, Dolphins 16
KIRK COUSINS: Thrilled we won. There's so much to the game, it didn't feel like we were playing our best football on offense, and was reminded at the end of the game when you're winning that when you don't turn the ball over, you kind of give yourself that chance to hang around.
So winning the turnover battle I think made a big difference in this game.
Can't say enough about the way our defense played, the way our special teams played. We kept having short fields, which we didn't do enough with.
But again, they just kept giving us opportunities and at-bats, and so just real positive. I'm so happy for Dalvin having that run to help kind of pull away at the end. Great to have him be able to come back here to where he's from and just make a crucial play to help us win the game.
I've been going on about the defense and special teams, but certainly offensively there's just so much we can improve on, and I think we've said this at other press conferences, as well, postgame that we need to play better. We need to execute better.
But it's great to have these conversations after a win as opposed to a loss. Too many three-and-outs, not enough sustained drives, not enough explosive plays.
And it's funny, because I went into the game saying, you want to take pride in, hey, we want to give our defense a rest down here in the heat in Miami. Let's stay on the field. Let's convert their downs have some long drives, let's put our defense with the wind at their back, and we did the complete opposite.
So that was disappointing, but somehow, some way, our defense just kept answering the bell and standing up and giving us the ball back, and giving us the ball back with great field position.
Made enough plays to win, and I have the feeling I think so many people on our team do, as well. We need to be a lot better, and that's what the next week, several weeks will be about.
I can take any questions you have.
Q. Can you take us through two big offensive plays? Looked like you checked to something on the Jefferson pass down the right side, and if there was anything special that led to Dalvin's run.
KIRK COUSINS: I don't know about anything special leading to Dalvin's run. They might have played cover zero. I can't remember. Usually when you get a run like that it might be because they're all gapped out.
But the check, yeah, that was just a great play designed by our coaches, by Kevin, giving us that opportunity, and they gave us the look we wanted to be able to get to that play, and then Justin did a phenomenal job tracking the ball, pulling away. It was a big explosive play for us.
We didn't have a ton of them, so to get that made a big difference.
Q. How tough was what they were throwing at you defensively?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, it's a scheme and an approach that I have a lot of respect for. I knew going into the game that they do some things that are a big challenge, and it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game back and forth.
They made it hard for us to get explosive runs. I thought they covered well. They ran a lot of man-to-man or match coverages much of the day and they did a good job with leverages and their techniques to make our angles difficult to get separation.
But the pass rush at times was effective and got home, and so it was a combination of factors.
Then there's also plays where you feel like you're just not executing, and so it all kind of comes together to a lot of three-and-outs and not enough points.
Q. When you get off to a tough offensive start like that, no 1st downs in the first quarter, is it kind of let's just chip away? What's the attitude?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I think chip away is a good approach. What you can't do is try to make something happen because that's where I think you get yourself in trouble with turning -- you have to fight to stay patient, fight to let the game come to you, and so that was what I was reminding myself, was not trying to go look for something, still just let the plays present themselves, and with the way our defense and special teams was playing, if we protected the football, we were going to be hanging around, hanging around.
It didn't feel like we had the lead for parts of the game, but we did, and Nick Mullins did I great reminding me of that. Hey, we got the lead, and one touchdown can be a major difference in this game.
Q. On the long run to Jefferson, is that inside step he takes there, is it to make sure coverage stays the same, that he can get that wheel route behind Adam?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I think he's just trying to get that leverage there and make sure he's not giving away the route too quickly. You want to be able to win at the line of scrimmage first before you take off on your route.
Q. Kevin was telling us he was pretty up front and vocal during the week about the weather and what he wanted you guys to do and all that. I know there's lots of different ways to look at it. Some coaches will say it doesn't matter, you're not talking about it. To what extent did that particular approach aid you guys today do you think, just the prep work heading in?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, appreciate the chance to talk about it. Monday morning we showed up for our weight room session after the Bears game, and strength coach says to us is sauna and steam room this week, get in multiple times to start to acclimate and be hydrating now, not Friday night or Saturday night, hydrating now. And it's not crush three water bottles in a row at the same time. It's every 15 minutes be drinking throughout the day, all week long.
So it was a measured approach going back to Monday.
I think the approach showed up with the defense more because when you're three-and-out all game long -- we were pretty fresh, I think. I think Justin and Adam could tell you they run for days, and I say that -- I'm smiling but I'm sad about it.
Defense, though, was just tremendous. I don't know how they did it, but they did.
I've got to give a lot of credit to Chad Lundeen and the I group that was holding the sun shades for us and fanning us.
I felt a little bit privileged sitting there, but it made a difference, because I'm sitting there like really comfortable with an air-conditioned bench and a sun shade. We kept going three-and-out, I didn't feel like I deserved an air-conditioned bench and a sun shade, but Chad Lundeen and the gang did a nice job.
Q. Did you feel like it was a normal game?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, just the thing for me gripping the football with the moisture. Very quarterbacky thing to say, but just the quarterback towel, the sweat, just trying to manage that.
Q. How much were the conversations with Kevin on the sideline talking about stay patient, that type of mindset?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I think there were times where the plays were there and we didn't execute, so I'm walking to the sideline and saying, hey, I've got to play better, we've got to play better.
Like that's not a play design thing. Then other times plays just were getting stopped.
The thing is plays complement and build on each other, so you have a negative play on 1st down, now 2nd down is affected, 3rd down is affected. You have a positive play on 1st down, now 2nd down is affected, 3rd down is affected. One possession that really bothered me was we got the ball, I think they may have faked a punt. We get the ball in very favorable field position early in the second half. You're thinking at least we're getting a field goal here, and we just went backwards and now we're punting. Those are the kind of possessions where you say I, we, have to find ways to at least get three there.
Is there anything specific that stands out to you even though the team isn't playing its best ball that you're able to still be 5-1?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, to have these conversations after a win is so much more enjoyable than after a loss. Very much the inverse of '21. I would walk off the field after we had lost and say, we're playing so well. We're playing so playing so well, and somehow, someway we lost, but we're playing at a very high level. This year I'm saying, gosh, we can play better, but we won. It's just kind of an inverse, and I'll take this any day.
Q. Kevin talked about the positive vibe on your sideline. From our perspective it does look like you and Kevin are having intense conversations. Can you describe them?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I think we're going to have intense conversations. I'm going to try to give him my feedback and he's going to give me his. I love when he coaches me hard and holds me to a high standard, and I think it's important, too, that we have these great conversations Monday after the game, being able to talk through -- it's one thing to have a conversation coming off the field when I haven't seen the tape yet, I don't really know what I'm saying, but now we have time to process it and look at it, those conversations I think are really valuable. That play caller-quarterback dynamic is just always -- you're trying to get in each other's head more and more and more the longer you work together.
Q. On the touchdown to Adam, obviously it looks like he's not the first read there. Take us through that play as you're seeing it and what leads you to Adam.
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, K.J. in the flat. They did a good job feathering off to him, and then I was trying to get to Irv, but they had another player feathering off to Irv, and then Adam won across the field in the back of the end zone. At that point you're kind of saying no, no, please show up, Adam, because I'm running out of options here, and he had a step on his guy, and then what Adam does so well is when the ball is in a tight window, he's strong at the catch point and finds a way to bring that down, keep his feet in and get us a six.
Q. From your perspective on that play, how much of that looked like he had to take a couple steps to buy time?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, you're feeling the focus on the rush so you don't focus on the rush but you feel it, so if you're not feeling it, then you know I've got a tick here, I've got a second. So I didn't feel anybody around me and felt like the protection was holding up enough to kind of get through that progression. But huge that Adam came open because at that point if he's not coming open I might find Justin spitting out the other way or we're off schedule.
Q. You touched upon Dalvin's long run. Why do you think he was so bottled up and what happened to finally get him to break loose there?
KIRK COUSINS: I think there's a compounding challenge when you're three-and-out. You're just not getting Dalvin at-bats to be able to go make those kind of runs. That's where when you convert 3rd downs, you get more ops. They did bottle our run game up well for much of the day, and that made it hard. That did make it hard. We've got to find a way.
One of the list of things that we've got to be better, one of them would be how do we get more of those Dalvin type runs at the end of the game throughout and be able to kind of stay ahead of the chains there.
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