Minnesota - 39
Indianapolis - 36
OT
A: Sorry, guys, the water is an absolute necessity for me right now.
Just want to commend our team, our entire organization. It took everybody today. After playing our worst half of football all season long, trying to do everything really in our power to lose the football game, we came back in at halftime and our team had a decision to make, our coaches had a decision to make.
I thought our captains, by the time our coaching staff came out to our players to give them the pseudo plan for the second half, guys like Patrick Peterson, Kirk Cousins, Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen, C.J. Ham, Brian O'Neill. I'm sure I'm missing somebody.
But Dalvin Cook, that's who I heard. I heard our leadership telling our guys, We've been here before, maybe not that much, maybe not the need for the largest comeback in the history of our league, but this team believes in each other. We just had to try to play good football. Regardless of score, we had to try to play good football, see if we could apply some pressure to our opponent before it was all said and done. We were able to do that.
We set a goal to win this division at the very beginning of the training camp. We have not talked about anything else besides winning the division. We knew how important that would be for our organization, our team.
Now we've got to take this moment, both the things we clearly need to correct early on in this football game, but see if we can harness the energy that it takes to set a record like that and compound that moving forward to have more complete performances, which is what this team is always on the strive to do.
I need to do a better job as the head coach demanding our standards four quarters to continue to give ourselves a chance to continue playing as long as they'll allow us to play this year.
Giving you guys an injury update. Justin Jefferson, a rib chest contusion. He's feeling pretty good right now. He was able obviously to come back in the game, help contribute in a huge way to winning that football game. I'm sure he'll be sore, but we'll keep you posted.
We have three players cramping, Christian Darrisaw, Patrick Peterson, and K.J. Osborn.
Career day for K.J. Huge day for Christian to come back and be a major part of that, being able to score like that in the second half. You need your offensive line to show up and handle their business, which against a really good front they were able to do.
With that I'll open it up to you guys.
Q. What does a win like this do to the mental makeup of your team?
A: We've had a few that I think you can build on. I don't think maybe we get it done today unless we had moments like Buffalo or Detroit, Washington. I could list off a few, you guys know.
When you got the right kind of guys, and we'll continue to improve and stress the importance of individual offense, defense, special teams, group improvement, then our team understanding how we can avoid setbacks like we had early on. We can list those. The list is very large from the things we did poorly in the first half.
But I will never discount this team's ability to overcome and continue to play, play for each other. Sometimes the culture stuff gets challenged in our league, but you don't win a game like that without it. Now we got to continue to work and continue to improve to be the best possible football team we can be through the rest of the month of December, and now we know into January.
Q. How do you wrap your head around this? This is the greatest comeback ever, surpassing that Buffalo-Houston playoff game. How do you wrap your head around that?
A: Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. I really haven't at this point. When you're trying to do something like that, really offensively in a lot of cases we were creating things, in a lot of cases getting players, seeing what kind of looks we could attack to kind of generate maybe some things we didn't talk about or practice.
Our guys handled it. How about your quarterback? You cannot win the football game the way we had to go win it without your quarterback playing at an incredibly high level. We talked last week, Justin and him tried to will us to win the football game last week. I think we just watched him do that amongst the other phases of our football team when we had to have it.
Q. How drained are you after a game like?
A: I'm absolutely exhausted right now. I'm not lying.
Q. Shower or cold beer?
A: All of the above.
I can't say enough about our fans. Although I felt it and heard some of the rightly due displeasure with our team in the first half, the moment that we could get some enthusiasm back in this building, no matter how farfetched it seemed that we could come back, our fans were right there. You felt them. Unbelievable.
I don't know if I've heard a building like that, like we did in the end. That energy is really what pushed us all year. When we needed them the most, they were at their best.
Q. When did it move from farfetched to this is happening in your mind, or did it?
A: I think when we were able to get the two scores. Then they get that field goal. In my mind I still thought three touchdowns and a two-point, which we kind of knew we were going to need five touchdowns anyway. Then when they got that field goal, I just knew it was possible just because the momentum we were building. Weren't just the plays and the success we were having, I thought there were other things off of some of the things we were able to do.
Dalvin Cook in the pass game I thought was huge. That screen was a season-defining kind of play in that moment where you had to have it.
Justin continuously going over the middle, making critical catches, willing to go attack the football. I think we got to protect him a little bit better. Great to get the flags, but just moving forward, us as coaches as well, not anybody else out there, but he's too important to our league. Seems like a weekly occurrence at this point.
Yeah, it was about that moment, then it was just about kind of making sure you look too big picture any particular moment in that second half and we're doing a disservice to reality still at that point.
Q. You said you needed five touchdowns. Mathematically that's the case. That sounds like a lot.
A: Patrick Peterson, I'll never forget it as long as I live. I addressed the team before we went back out there. I heard him walk over towards the offense, We're going to get stops, you just need five touchdowns. That's nothing.
It was a nice little moment for me to lead right in off of. I said, Pat, you're exactly right. That's what we needed at the time.
It was probably the most motivated I've been to kind of challenge our players just so that they just knew, regardless of the outcome today, that first half was not good enough, and it will never be acceptable to have that kind of performance regardless of the outcome today.
Nobody's happier to be NFC North champions, the way we earned it. I think it will stick with a lot of us for a long time. There's still a lot to go back and make sure that we rectify and continue to improve.
Q. What does it take to get a roster full of guys in the head space where you say, We only need five touchdowns, they believe it...
A: First and foremost you got to believe it yourself. I think the one thing in this league is if you're not authentic and real, those 53 guys in there will notice. I've built that up with these guys over a long period of time. They knew both at halftime and after the game, they know I mean every word I say to them in any moment. Good or bad, I'm going to consistently be me every single day because I just don't know any other way.
I can trust that I got the right guys here, the leadership of our football team. I don't know if you can say enough about some of those guys throughout our season in the different moments. I'm not just talking about the eight captains, I'm talking about the 22-plus players that receive votes to be captain on our team.
Q. For K.J., the season he's had, 10 catches, 157, get you guys started with the first touchdown, what did that mean?
A: I told K.J. a few weeks back his time was coming. Regardless with how our offense is evolving, his value to us, I just knew it would happen. I didn't necessarily envision is maybe the scenario that played out today.
But think back. Some of those catches, conversions, his willingness to catch, get north, the yards after catch, critical plays for our team.
People won't see some of the blocking that he did, helping spring some of those underneath completions. I thought he was great on the bubble game. Something as little as catching and converting first downs with T.J. and Adam out in front blocking for him. Just little things execution-wise that our guys did, gave us the chance to extend the chance to win the football game.
That's all you're really looking for, is eliminating the other team having a chance to put us away. If they don't do that, our guys are going to continue to fight and grind it out till they tell us there's no more ball left to play.
Q. What did you observe from the two Sullivan fumble returns for touchdowns that weren't?
A: I could feel why he was so frustrated. The first one, they just ruled forward progress stopped. When they do that, doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with the call. It's out of my hands at that point. I cannot challenge that.
Then I was able to challenge the other one and get that ball out, get that ball back. Some of those stops defensively we had, we just kept on urging them to keep going at the football, see if we can change the game, which we thought we did at that one point, but unfortunately we didn't.
Sully is one of those guys that keeps battling. Veteran player, smart, tough. You don't win a game like this and hold the team to three points in the second half without guys like Sully gutting it out.
Q. You had to hear all week about your defense, how bad they have been playing recently. What does it say about them today?
A: I didn't think we did anything to help them. As a whole, if we're going to sit back and overanalyze, I think we need to analyze how poorly we did at supporting them today, both special teams and offense.
I'm really proud of our defense. You don't come back in a game like this, hold a team to three points. We had to be aggressive with some decision making early on. Gave them short fields. Even though we didn't help them, those guys never flinched, never looked to the other phases of our offense or special teams.
Shoot, I thought Ed in the second half really timely pressures, losing Pat Pete for some stretches there, guys tightening it up. A lot of people had a hand in this one.
Our defense, we don't get it done today without those guys.
Q. If you tied the game... Was that in your head?
A: It was very much in my head. That's why the last time we got the ball, we started the drive out with a run. All I wanted to see is can we get a new set of downs? Can we very not conservatively is the wrong word because I felt strongly about the calls, but can we eat some clock and have the mindset when we get the first first down, I trust Kirk wholeheartedly in those moments. He made a few throws to flip the field. Even down to the very end you're saying to yourself, Should we...
There's moments where it said a lot of about your confidence and your team. Regardless of how any particular phase has been up to this point, I wanted to win this football game. I thought our team earned the right to win the game. How about Greg knocking it in from, what was it, 40. A no doubter. As soon as it hit his foot, I knew it was in.
Q. 58, 59-yard field goal...
A: At that point in time with the clock being where it is, I thought our defense, like I said, played well enough to maybe pin them, see if we could get the ball right back. It took a huge stop for those guys to do that. Maybe they drove the ball down a little bit on us.
Our defense bowed up when they had to. That was really another reason why, even with the clock being where it was, trying to be aggressive with my timeouts there, I just wanted to give our team a chance to completely grasp.
It will be nice to look back and say we won this football game. Would have been great to win the division with a tie, but nothing better than winning it like we did, setting a record and winning the football game.
Q. What is going through your mind when you see Kirk put the ball into tight spaces? How much is that him doing that or you telling him it's okay to be aggressive?
A: No, he knew. I don't have to say a whole lot. I'm trying to generate not-so-tight coverage with some of the things I'm calling. I just thought that his poise, his demeanor, his accuracy when we needed it the most.
I think back to some huge plays that were not his first progression, second progression. The guys up front doing a great job giving him an extra click in critical moments to get that to T.J. on the two-pointer, find that dagger to Adam in that two-minute drive late. That's three or four on the progression backside trying to high-low defenders. This guy knives a beautiful throw to his guy.
Kirk deserves a huge amount of credit for, like I said, willing our team. Regardless of the plays that are called, that guy keeps playing at a high level. He was a huge part of us winning this game.
Q. Any one moment, big or small, that might be cemented in your memory?
A: Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard for me. There's so, so many in my mind.
I wouldn't want to sell any one particular area short. You can just go back through and look at some of the plays offensively, defensively, that really changed the minutes-to-minute, play-to-play. It felt like the narrative of this game was changing. Our guys continued to apply pressure. We got a lot of things to fix.
I appreciate you guys very much, but this one will stick with me for a long time. I'm really proud of our football team and our coaching staff.
Thank you, guys.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports