Vikings - 34, Packers - 31
Q. The way the game was going down the stretch with both teams scoring going back and forth were you anticipating this might be one where it comes down to whoever has the ball last?
A: I mean, I feel good about our defense. I feel like they were due for a big stop. We had a chance there. Sav almost was able to hold onto that pick, get us the ball back at the 40.
But Kirk's had a really nice season. He played really well today. And we just started a little bit too slow. Didn't score enough points.
Q. I'm wondering, what do you think of the prospects of playing the rest of the season without Elgton Jenkins?
A: Whoo, he's been so versatile for us. He can play every position on the line. I think he's played at least four of them. So definitely hate to see that happen. Not sure what his official status is coming out of the game.
But with Dave's status unknown, we're going to have to rely on probably Yosh. He's played some good football for us. So proud of the way he stepped in. But hopefully the news isn't so bad with Elgton.
Q. Can you just quickly take us through the play to Marquez? And at that point obviously you have to score but is there any fear, like, we scored too soon?
A: Not really. The play was an old play in the old offense that we've kind of revamped the last, I don't know, six or eight weeks. Called it a few times. Called it today probably three or four times. Just made a slight adjustment, putting -- we called it on the second to last drive. And Quez was No. 2. He ran a corner route and they dropped him.
I moved Randall to the 2 spot thinking he's a good corner runner and his angle would be a little higher than Marquez's when we looked at the pictures on the sidelines. And Marquez's speed at 3 is always an attention-getter. They decided to bring pressure.
And I kind of looked left first to Davante. And that kind of held Harrison down there on that side. Quez had a one-on-one on the safety. Took a really nice angle. Protection held up. I was able to do my footwork I've been doing for 17 years on that play and retreat back and put the ball in a good spot. Once the ball is in Quez's hands he's taking it to the house.
Q. It didn't look like your toe bothered you at all. You had the long run. You were able to move the way you normally do. But the fact that you're not able to practice, is it a big concern for you, and what is it exactly? Is it like Davante with the turf toe a couple of years ago or what?
A: No. I've had turf toe. It's a little worse than turf toe. I'm just going to have to get through the bye and hope I can get some healing over the bye week. Probably the same schedule next week. I was in a lot of pain. Went in at halftime early to get it checked out.
But it's very, very painful. Got stepped on in the first half and that kind of activated all the symptoms I was having. So it's going to be another painful week next week and hopefully start to feel a little better in the bye.
Q. Of all the drives that maybe you weren't able to convert, was there any one that bothered you more than any another, that you thought you could have scored on that.
A: The first drive of the game, to go out and get seven would have been great, hit Te on the crossing route, turned into a 40-yard gain to get us going. We came back and looked like there was PI on Marquez. And that would have been a 10-yard gain. Then we had to settle for a 54-yard field goal. So I think that was definitely frustrating.
There was some other frustrating drives for sure. But they played two shell the majority of the game. They played a little 1-high here and there, but a lot of two shell.
Once we kind of got into more spread-out formations, I feel like there were some big open spots, especially in the middle. And you start hitting them and moving Davante around and putting them in the slot on the 2 side, putting him in the three spot on a one by three, and just give him different looks to free him up. That was what got us going.
Q. On the end around to EQ, given that you haven't practiced all week, have you practiced that before? Because you were like Jason Williams NBA-style with your ball handling there. It looked like it was magician style?
A: I do appreciate that reference being a big Kings fan growing up. But we borrowed that play from an offense very similar to ours. And I just tried to mimic what I saw Matt Stafford do on the clip.
So that was a great run by EQ. I'm really proud of EQ. I got a hold of him and had a nice conversation with him at the end of training camp when he was released. And I felt like there was going to be an opportunity for him at some point in the season.
But today what he did, especially on those two catches and the end-around, that was pretty awesome.
But to finish up your answer, I took a walk-through rep of that during the week and that was good enough for me to feel good about the ball handling and the kind of flip point.
Q. What did you see on the pass to Deguara? And how big is that moment for a young tight end kind of going off an extended play to connect with him?
A: It's good to get his first touchdown. We ran a three-man combo to his side. They stayed inside leverage. So I went to my backside read, which is Davante running a stick return. And he ran a great stick and then Anthony kind of held him.
And so I kind of was able, I got off it. I was thinking there going to be a flag there and kind of moved to my left. As I moved to my left, I was thinking about running for a second. And then he just flashed on me.
I think he was three, number three in the three by two. And so he just -- obviously just took it up and then broke out when he saw my scramble and made a nice catch.
But he does a lot of dirty work for us, a lot of slides to the back side and cuts and some flat routes and stuff. And he plays some fullback for us. I was really happy for him to get that first touchdown.
Q. Can you take us through the second touchdown to Davante where the snap was goofed up, you didn't block Griffen, and Davante got wide open?
A: They brought an empty pressure. So, they brought six. We had five blockers. I was winding it down to call timeout. And Lucas decided to snap it early. He says that I changed the snap count. I don't know if that was correct there, but the clock was running down and I had just turned to Sean (phonetic) to call timeout.
And as I turned that ball was snapped. I caught it. I knew we were going to squeeze to the left side, so it was going to be me and Griffen kind of mano y mano there. And I looked to the inside route, which I believe was Marquez maybe. He was covered. I gave a little stutter step to Everson and I saw Te had beaten his guy, stutter stepped his guy and beaten him. So I just tried to get it up in the air and get it out there. Turned into a pretty sweet play, though.
Q. With the emphasis on enjoying what's in front of you were there moments you did that today in a back and forth struggle, and how do you do that when it's such a contested game?
A: I appreciate the environment. We've had some back and forths here over the years and we opened the stadium up years ago. It wasn't quite as loud today as it has been in some of those past games. Maybe that's because there's a lot of Packer fans here, which is awesome. The support was great.
But I do enjoy the battles against Coach Zimmer and the defense. We played against Anthony and Eric and Harrison for a long time. Everson is back with them. So I do enjoy the battles.
Zim is a great coach and a great scheme and always mixes things up. And it's a chess match. But it was fun to have some success today but disappointing we're coming up on the short end.
Q. How good is it to find Davante Adams twice in the end zone?
A: It's always nice throwing him the ball. He's got a big catch radius. The first one was a deep crossing route there in the red zone. And the protection was great on that play. And I actually came back to see if Cobby, if they had dropped Cobby on the back side -- by the time I got back to Te he was getting double covered. The protection was so good I just slid to my right and was pointing him back to the other side. And he made a nice catch. And I detailed the second one. That was just a great route by him and I was able to buy enough time.
But I am proud of Marquez. We've missed on some opportunities this year. Missed on one today, but we had a couple of big plays throughout the game and obviously the big touchdown to bring us back even there in the fourth was pretty special to get him the ball in space down the field.
Q. I know it's such a week-to-week league, but where do you think you guys need to get better down the stretch?
A: At times, during the last couple of years, we've been so good in the first 15 to 20 plays that we script and scoring on opening drives, touchdowns. Hasn't really been the case this year. We've been a lot slower starting. We've got to look at that.
Haven't been great in situational offense, especially in the red zone comparatively. Today we were a little bit better. But we gotta get touchdowns.
And our defense have been playing so good. Some games you've got to outscore teams that get hot on offense and we had an opportunity to score 40 points today.
And when you're playing an offense that's hot, that has a hot quarterback and stud receivers and a stud back, you've got to keep scoring. We've had a couple of games like this over the years, thinking back to 2012, especially, where we got outscored -- gotta outscore them at their place. We didn't do that today.
But I think for us personally on offense we've got to start faster. We've got to score touchdowns on those opening plays. I know Matt will be looking at that this week and dial up some good stuff for LA.
Q. Along those lines, when you have a receiver on the other side going off like Justin Jefferson did today, how much is that in your conscious? How much are you aware of that? How much does that put pressure on the offense to kind of keep pace?
A: I mean, we knew that they had some explosiveness on offense. Obviously played against Adam for a long time and Justin is a super talented young player. Kirk's been playing really well. So we knew we had to take care of the football and we had to maximize our possessions.
We had, I believe, just three possessions in the second half and scored touchdowns in all of them. But we had an opportunity in the first half to do a better job putting points on the board and converting on some third downs in the red zone.
It's not just necessarily a conscious effort when Justin is going nuts. It's just we knew we had to maximize our possessions, that they could shrink the game a little bit. We just didn't do that in the first half.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports