Vikings 27, Jets 22
KIRK COUSINS: Hard-fought game, great to get a win, great atmosphere here at home, great crowd, which I think made a major difference, especially down the stretch.
I felt had a lot of productive runs today, which made a difference against a good defense. I thought our receivers made plays throughout the game, and being 50 percent on 3rd down, I think, helped, and we had some long drives.
Just at times just spent too much time on the sideline of our own doing, three-and-outs, and third and fourth quarter just not sustaining drives enough to score points and give our defense a break and kind of keep the ball in our hands.
There's a lot that we need to improve upon, but great to get a win at home, and we'll just keep working from here.
Q. How do you battle through when you don't have your best? You seemed to battle through and get it at the end.
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, you just take one play at a time, and you know the next play it can turn and the next play can go a different way, so you just keep playing and believe that it can turn, and it obviously helps when you have the defense making stops and your teammates making plays for you time and again.
Q. Coach just said you talked to the team after the game, said something about tough teams persevere or what exactly did you say?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, it's just a mantra I've kind of lived by my whole pro football career that started with Mike Shanahan. He would always say tough times don't last, tough people do. I think I may have said it here before with you guys, but I believe strongly in that, and this pro football journey, you just have to live that again and again, tough times don't last, tough people do. I felt like this game in a way was a little bit of a microcosm of that.
Q. You took a lot of hits today and your durability is pretty obvious. Do you know why you've been able to be this durable?
KIRK COUSINS: I don't have a great answer for that. I don't have a great answer why we're finding these inches in all these games, but we are. I do know a lot of people are praying for protection and have been for my entire career, and I think those prayers have been answered.
I think that I spend of lot of time working with different bodywork people here in the Twin Cities on a weekly basis, sometimes a daily basis. I think just having a lot of prayers and a lot of good people working on you, working with you to put you back together after each game -- that what I ask them to do. I say, hey, I'm in a car accident every week, and you've got to put me back together on Monday and on Friday, and it's kind of like getting an oil change. You go back and you get put back together and then you get ready for the next car accident.
That's sort of how it's been, and I've got some great people, a great team that helps.
Q. (Indiscernible) coming through in clutch situations at this stage of your career?
KIRK COUSINS: I don't know, I think every game is its own entity, and I felt today our defense was really what came through for us, keeping them out of the end zone there twice, not to mention the other times throughout the game.
Anytime you do make a play, it's never yourself, it's always teammates, protection, a great call by Kevin, by our staff, great play design.
When we have had success in those moments in the fourth quarter, I think it's more a reflection of the whole product than just the quarterback.
Q. The touchdown throw to Justin Jefferson, what was the key to making that play work?
KIRK COUSINS: I just kind of clicked through the progression, T.J., KJ -- I think I probably had KJ and could have pulled the trigger to him, to Adam, and then saying no to all them, J.J. had the right leverage with the DB inside, and then just tried to put that ball out to the sideline for him. It's a route that he's had a lot of success with going back to training camp, and it was great to hit that one. We've been looking for that one for a while and couldn't get it, and it was great to hit it.
Q. What does it say about (indiscernible) where you're having trouble sustaining anything in that half to put that drive together?
KIRK COUSINS: I think it was what we needed. That's where you believe that hey, the next possession, the next play, anything can happen, anything can turn, so just stay going, and coaches did a great job that entire drive of just kind of applying pressure to the defense and putting us in a position to be successful.
It was great to have that drive, just you walk away saying, gosh, could we have had two or three more of those instead of just that one in the fourth quarter.
Q. How much do you feel like the defense's situational success is a byproduct of how smart some of those guys are and the experience on that side?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I do think it goes back to you get what you emphasize, and whether it's the situational masters meeting every Friday that it's being coached again and again, I just think that it's been emphasized quite a bit, and I do think we have smart players, players that are real pros and take it with a lot of discipline and detail, and I think it does show up in those moments.
Q. What's going through your mind when you're watching the end of that game, like do you just believe that they're going to find a way because they have so many times this year?
KIRK COUSINS: I'd say so. You've got a belief.
I also think my mind is going to -- you have to negatively think, okay, when they score, if they score, what are we doing, similar to Buffalo when we got the -- our defense got the touchdown for us on the fumbled sneak, I'm thinking about, all right, they're going to go down, kick a field goal, send us to overtime, I've got to get my mind ready for that. It's obviously the negative way to think, but it's your best way to then play well when the ball gets to you next. You try to always think about what's the scenario where we get the ball back and we've got to do something with it, and then when they get the stop, that's obviously a bonus.
Q. During the first half when you lower your head (indiscernible) do you just think, I've got to make a play here?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, I didn't know where the line was quite to gain, and so I just felt I've got to get every yard I can, and so tried to make sure I gave it everything I had.
I don't know if I was already past it or not, but I don't know if I was, but that was my mindset was let's get everything we can here. I'm not sure where it is.
Q. What did you think of meeting Little Kirk?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, he was awesome. I felt badly that he was having to be shirtless and had the chains all game long. I said to him pregame, I said, buddy, if those things get -- I've worn them, they get heavy. If those get heavy, you get a little cold, feel free to put a shirt on and take the chains off. You've done so much.
But sure enough, in the fourth quarter, there he was. It was fun. They drove three hours. It says a lot about our fan base and the passion they have for this team. It's certainly a Minnesota thing, but they're coming from Iowa and you've got the Dakotas and it's special to have this entire region of the country pulling for the Vikings.
Q. You mentioned a car accident earlier. I don't know if there's degrees of car accidents but was this one a particularly rough one?
KIRK COUSINS: There were hits, but I actually was -- you check yourself after each one, and I was good, I was clean. This one will be good, but it was more that their rush made it uncomfortable in the pocket, so even if they're not hitting you, you feel like they're affecting your accuracy, they're affecting your timing, and so I think it was more the timing and things like that than even the hits.
Q. On some of those ones that sailed on you, did you feel on most of those like it's the rush affecting you?
KIRK COUSINS: No, I think the one to T.J. was the most egregious miss. That was just a miss. Gave it too much. There were a couple my feet were ahead of the play, so I'm hitching and my feet are telling me to release it, but the play hasn't really developed yet, and so some of that's press coverage that slows down the route. They've got to negotiate the route. They're not running it on air. So the timing was something that I needed to go back and watch and make sure that I'm slowing down my drop, if that makes sense, to make sure I'm not ahead of the read or ahead of the play.
That's part of it.
Q. How long do you get to get a receiver downfield as opposed to a quick check down?
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, it really just comes down to the coverage and the need to get, to progress. Pocket has got to hold up, and I do pride myself -- for me to play in this league and have success, I have to be able to get through progressions and identify coverage and move quickly. I can't -- that's the way I'm going to beat people. It's going to be that way. That's going to be part of my calling card is getting through reads and progressions and trying to do that at an elite level and trying to separate myself that way.
Q. Will it be extra special for you to clinch the division in Michigan?
KIRK COUSINS: I think anytime you can play in a T-shirt and hat game and get the job done, that's what's special. I always enjoy going back to the state where I grew up and seeing people in green and white and that kind of a thing.
We've got a big challenge, and I think the Lions are a really good football team and they're showing that, so that'll be a tough environment and big challenge for us.
Q. I know a lot about you guys on defense were saying they were feeding off you, they don't want you to get hit, but to hear your defense saying they were feeding off your energy --
KIRK COUSINS: Yeah, those guys are great. They're great teammates. They've been so supportive of me. I think they do love it. As I said when we ran for that touchdown against Arizona, the O-line loves it. You've certainly got to be smart. You want to be there for your team the weeks ahead, so you're not trying to lower your shoulder all the time, but yeah, certainly be smart and pop back up and keep making plays. I think that's a part of playing the position and part of being a pro quarterback.
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