Lions 30, Vikings 24
A: The faithful are here (smiling). How is it going?
Hell of a win. That goes without saying. We knew it was going to come down to the fourth quarter. That's a good opponent. They've got a lot of skill. They play hard. We know what they're about in their own home, too. That's a credit to our players, man.
I'm proud of a number of people in this organization. Certainly proud of the coaches and the players. This is special. This is special. It's something you don't get to do all the time. It's always special to win a division, I don't care how many of them you get, because of the work that goes into it. To do something that hasn't been done in 30 years for a team is special.
That's a special group of men back in there that are staying tame at this point (smiling).
Q. Your first game in this building, a tough one, emotional one for you. What emotions are you experiencing in this moment?
A: Yeah, I'm pretty ecstatic, man. This is special. This is special. Like I said, it's a special group. This is just the beginning. We feel that way. There again, I couldn't be more proud of the guys.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: No different than how this game went, right? You have to battle there in the first half. They're able to score right before halftime. You come out second half, they go back down the field and they score. We put together two drives. All of a sudden you're back up two scores. Then we don't. Defensively we start holding. Next thing you know, you're at the end of this game and it's just going back and forth.
Nobody got frazzled, nobody lost their cool. When we needed it in the crunch times, we made plays. That's what good teams do, they find ways to win the game instead of the other way, you know?
That's not an easy thing to do. But when you got the right guys who mesh together and they work for each other and they care about each other, they're accountable to each other, it makes a difference.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: Yeah, are you just saying...
Q. Is that what you were thinking about, talking about?
A: Well, yeah, sure. Certainly to know you're going to do this on the road and get the first one. But yeah, I know this: when you're around good teams and it's designed the right way and you got the right coaches and people in management, you got the right GM, the owner, the team, all of it, you just find ways. You can endure in any environment. Doesn't matter what the score is. Doesn't matter the elements. It doesn't matter where the momentum's at at that time. You'll find a way to overcome it.
That's really what we got here. We got a group of guys that has found a way to overcome it. Look, we've learned hard lessons through a period of time here. We learned a hard one here. First year we did. We basically fought back in it, went for two to win the game, then we gave up a big shot right before the end of the game for them to kick it for the win.
Last year we had it. We're up. Just got to close it out. We didn't handle the four-minute well offensively. We could have closed that game out. I made an awful decision.
You learn from those, man. It makes you better. You hate that it happens to you, but it does make you better. You learn from it. And everybody. Most of that team, most of that core is here from last year.
Anyway, look, I'm proud of everybody. This has been a long time coming. Look, I'm proud of all the Lions' fans out there that have been dying for this for years, man. That's for you, too. I know is been a long time. You deserve that. And it's not over. That's just one.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: Just another outstanding performance. Here we go, man. Week two of this, and he's not just out there playing football, solid performance. He's a factor. He's a factor. He's just getting better and better. He's instinctive. You see the athletic ability. He plays physically. He's just getting better and better. I mean, he really is.
We're going to have a good problem to have when Deucey comes back here. It just brings another play-maker to the mix. He's doing well.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: Yeah, you're talking about Jefferson?
Q. Yeah.
A: Made a couple plays when he's doubled. We're in good position. We just can't... Look, the guy's going to make some plays. More than anything, you're in the position of next play. That's really what it is. It's not, What happened? It's, Okay, here we go, man. You're right into the next one because the next one's going to be the one that creates the stop or the takeaway.
I thought we handled all that well. Was it perfect? No. That's the nature of it. Guy's a hell of a player. He is.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: Listen, just excitement. Just excitement. I mean, the look on her face and just the pure joy and happiness, watching the celebration with the coaches and players and everybody, watching her interact. It feels good.
I promised her we'd get her there, and we did that. That's one.
Q. (Question about young players.)
A: Yeah, you feel for those. There's something about that that does make it special. Like I said, look, you'll never forget the first one you get. This is the first one.
You're right, the young guys, for the most part this is kind of what they know. That's a good thing. That's the way you want it.
For the old guard, for Decker and for Frank and Jerm and Will Harris, Romeo, I mean, you keep going, Tracy. You want that for them. You kind of feel like this first one was a little bit for you, too, because we couldn't have done it without them.
All that they've been through really to get to this point, all the work that they put in, all the hope, all the belief, all the systems. It just doesn't work out. For them to just believe one more time in what we're doing, trust us and mesh with us, give us what they got, they're one of the biggest reasons we even got this one.
I'm happy for them. I'm happy for them. It's special because they deserve that. They deserve that.
Q. (No microphone.)
A: O-line showed up again. They did an outstanding job. There was nothing easy about getting ready for this defense. I thought Ben put together a really, really good game plan for them on how we needed to attack them.
The O-line, we felt like as long as we got it ID'd properly, which we felt about Frank and JG finding the right looks, we did that well. As long as we did that, we felt like we could hold up. We did, man. We did better than hold up.
Goff found our guys. There's holes. You find them, they don't make it easy. Our guys did the rest. Gibbs did the rest. St. Brown did the rest. Speed and space, I mean, let them go.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports