Vikings 27, Saints 19
A. I'm disappointed with the way we played today. Particularly in the first half of the game. I've got to find a way to get this team to be more consistent. So that's on me. I'll have to do a better job.
I'll take your questions.
Q. What's been the biggest issue with the slow starts on both sides of the ball?
A. Look, I think the bigger thing really has been our inability on first and second down to do a better job of getting them into third and longer situations. We're allowing too many first and second down conversions, not forcing enough third downs early on in games.
We struggled again with quarterback again today. You know, we had some opportunities to get him on the ground. We didn't cash in on those opportunities. We had some guys that were spying him, and he made some plays.
But, yeah, look, we have to do a better job. Offensively I thought we ran the ball early in the game pretty effectively, and then all of a sudden you're chasing points. It becomes a little bit more difficult to do.
I think just as a team we've got to do a better job of being more competitive in first half of games. Our guys fought their tails off to give themselves a chance, but can't keep digging yourself into these holes and think you're going to be able to come back all the time.
Q. What happened with Derek?
A. He was evaluated for a concussion. I can't really talk about it or elaborate on it.
Q. The right shoulder, is that anything to do with his last injury?
A. We'll look at it, but he was out of the game because he was evaluated for a concussion, so...
Q. Has anybody else done testing on the shoulder because of the concussion?
A. Listen, I don't know all the answers to that. We'll see where he is at tomorrow.
Q. Why do you think you respond so well when you get behind and then things start flowing on both sides?
A. I don't really know what the answer is to that. I'm just being honest with you. I don't know what the answer is to that. I would like to think that we could start a little faster, get the momentum going a little bit quicker. I do know our guys never feel like they're out of it. I do know they're going to continue to fight and battle.
But, like I said, we can't keep digging ourselves into these holes, especially against a good football team.
Q. (Indiscernible)
A. I thought Jameis did some good things in the game. Got a couple of explosive plays. We were able to score a couple of touchdowns, a couple of two-point conversions. I thought there was some good things that he did in terms of in the passing game.
It's obviously a tough situation to come into when you're down that many points, and the team really kind of knows that you're going to have to throw the ball. So I thought under all those circumstances, I thought he did a good job.
I thought Chris and A.T. made some nice plays for him. There were probably a couple of opportunities that I thought that we might could have cashed in on, but I thought overall I was pleased with what he was able to do under those circumstances.
Q. Was it enough to evaluate that position after a bye week as far as the starter?
A. Well, we'll see where Derek is at. I don't think we're -- well, I know we're not in a competition there. I thought Jameis did some good things, but Derek Carr is our starting quarterback.
Q. Did Mike get hurt on that first hit?
A. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, he has a knee injury.
Q. What did T.J. Hockenson do in especially the first half that kind of gave you all trouble?
A. Well, look, he is an exceptional route runner. So he ran some good routes and got open. We struggled to be able to cover him today.
I'll go back and look at the tape and see if there's some things that maybe we could have done differently, but he obviously was a major factor in the game.
Q. (On the impact of Mike leaving game early)
A. It impacted some things that we were wanting to do. I thought overall I thought A.T. Perry came in and performed well, but I think any time you lose a guy of Mike's magnitude, it affects what you're doing.
Q. Do you feel like overall that you have regressed this season?
A. Progressed or regressed?
Q. Regressed.
A. I don't think we're playing as well as we're capable of playing, you know. So, yeah, I don't think we're playing as well as we're capable of playing. I think we need to play better.
Q. As for Hockenson, was he doing a lot of zone meter stuff or --
A. I think he beat us in zone. He beat us in man. He beat us on a few things.
Q. Is there anything you can say about -- I know we're going down a list of injuries. Is there anything you can say about Lattimore and what happened to him?
A. He has an ankle, so Mike Thomas -- any issues really coming out of the game really is Mike with the knee and Lattimore with the ankle, and then obviously Carr is in the concussion protocol.
Q. What's the focus for the players going into the bye week? What was your message?
A. The focus for the players is to get away, get their minds off of football for just a little bit, kind of reset again. Get their bodies healthy, so there's a lot of rehab that's going to be going on over this next week to try to get guys healthy and get back.
Then us as coaches, we've got to look at how we can put some better plans together to give our guys more opportunities to be successful.
Q. Do you feel like it comes at a good time?
A. Yeah, look, you play a game like this, yeah, you kind of want to reset a little bit. Yeah, I don't know if it comes at a good time or not.
We'll evaluate kind of this tape and see what we can do better, and then we have to get ready for Atlanta.
Q. Can you live with that interception at the end with Jameis just because of the situation you all are in, or do you want to not make those kinds of decisions?
A. Look, without seeing the whole thing, I'll probably reserve judgment on that. Again, when you're in those situations and you are kind of in a little bit of desperation mode, sometimes those things happen, so...
Q. You had a lot of success with Taysom the last few weeks, but he only had one rush today. Was that a product of getting down so quickly?
A. Yeah, yeah. I think when you get down like that so early in the game, it really limits a lot of the things that you want to try to be able to accomplish in a game.
So we have to be better defensively of keeping the score down in the early part of the game, so what we have is our game plan going in offensively. You kind of get out of it probably by the early part of the second quarter just because you're now chasing points.
Q. The sort of boost in production the second half on the offensive side, did that come down more to execution, or did you all find a different way to attack?
A. Yeah, I think probably a little bit of both. We had a couple of thoughts coming out of halftime of things that we liked. I thought our guys executed those things a little bit better, and some of the tempo stuff, again, was pretty good for us.
Q. Would you say similarly kind of from a defensive side as well, as far as scoring them down and --
A. I think that was a lot more about getting our eyes in the right spot and our execution more so than it was kind of a change in philosophy or calls or whatever.
Q. Do you have a comment about what happened with Mike from Friday night?
A. No.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports