Vikings 23, Cardinals 22
KEVIN O'CONNELL: Injury updates for you guys. Stephon Gilmore did get a hamstring, left hamstring, did not return. I'm hoping we avoided a longer term issue there. He was thinking about possibly coming back in. But able to hold on to the win there, guys making some plays, stepping up.
Pat Jones did have the right knee, was able to come back in and finish the game.
Proud of our guys. Got our tenth win by December 1st, which I think is an accomplishment. Games are hard to win. I do think that's a really well-coached playoff caliber football team in the other locker room. I want to give the Cardinals a lot of credit. They made it hard on us. We've got to be a lot better offensively and see if we can not put ourselves in a hole.
But I will say, you know, when we absolutely needed it, to put those drives together and find a way to get the points needed to win the game is obviously the intent of everything here. But as we continue to take a close look at what we do, there will always be room for improvement.
But very much looking forward to attacking it with these guys and did congratulate them on getting to ten wins as we kick off a very important month of December.
Q. What does it say about this team that you guys seem to play your best when the heat really turns on?
A. Yeah, one of our mottos is being situational masters, and that expresses itself a lot of different ways. I know I feel like I know me personally, I feel an obligation as the play caller to be at your best, and that's overcoming a lot of things.
I mean, to take some sacks on third down, I want to compliment the scheme and kind of forcing some of those plays. At the same time, our guys need to communicate better and make sure we get those things blocked up and give ourselves a chance to operate.
But with that type of struggle for much of the game on third down, for us to kind of eliminate that play for the most part altogether and find ways to get explosives, I think we had nine over kind of the last three drives of the game, and we needed every single one of them.
Loved the fact that even though it wasn't Aaron's best day to come to him and punch the ball and take the lead, punch the ball in on that kind of designer kind of play there, didn't hesitate for a second that he wasn't going to make that play and we would go up by one.
Q. Sam throws for 100-some yards in the fourth quarter. What do you say about him second week in a row with that type of performance?
A. I think we continue to learn things about our team that will pay a lot of dividends moving forward. Two weeks in a row now, finding a way when really last week, momentum was taken from us. Up 11, and they're able to kind of come back and tie it up, and then we marched the ball down the field without an incompletion 90 yards, and did what we had to do to win that one.
Not one time did anybody on the team flinch and we did what we had to do to get the win today. At the same time, we know there's a lot of things throughout a four-quarter football game that we've got to continue to improve at, and that's what we're going to do.
Q. There was more of an effort to get the ball to Justin in the second half?
A. There was an effort early too. We might have had him on a couple plays, and either we climbed up and tried to check the ball down or even on Aaron's fumble on his catch, it was a check-down and the ball gets punched out. Might have had them there.
We'll watch the tape and continue find ways to move him and all the different tools we have. But we definitely tried to find different types of things as we went, trying some things out, doing some things that maybe weren't on the call sheet and kind of went into that world a little bit because I do want to compliment them on a really good defensive game plan.
I talked about it throughout the week. It's a hard team to run the ball against because of where Budda is in the scheme. If they play that personnel grouping, which I knew they would, we saw it the majority of the day, they than force some things both in protection and in the run game. So credit those guys that put together a great plan, played well enough to win. We just were able to come back and get them in the win.
Q. What is your thought process with Aaron Jones. He had two early fumbles. You said you never lost faith, put him in at the end. The way the league goes, we've seen times where guys take a seat for the day?
A. He did sit down, non-scheduled, and just kind of -- really, if anything, I have total trust in Aaron. You guys can see it all over his face, the disappointment he has. We've got to find a way to fix it because we've had too many times that the ball does end up on the ground early on in games and that's a huge momentum play, giving them such a short field. What a response by our defense to keep them out of the end zone and ultimately pish them back far enough that they miss a field goal.
But, listen, there as reason why I called the play I did in the end. He's one of our best players. He's going to continue to be one of our best players, and there's not a guy in the locker room that doesn't absolutely love playing with Aaron Jones, and we've got his back without any hesitation or question.
Q. Kevin, you had the series in the third, it's three and out, you lose five. Fans are frustrated. What flipped in from then on, you scored the next three progressions?
A. We got aggressive with some sequences where you're kind of looking out. Even if we were able to hold them to three, I thought we kind of needed to do whatever we could, maybe risk/reward on plays for some chunks.
They didn't necessarily articulate themselves down the field as much as finding ways to attack the deep part of the field and continue to find space in the intermediate part, which is what I thought our guys did.
Sam found Speedy on a nice hit. We were able to get Jordan on that last drive for a nice hit. I thought Justin was pretty huge as far as just, I mean, we line him up in the backfield. He starts the drive off with a catch for a positive play. And then just even that fourth down catch, you know, just the detail, being locked in, being able to -- those guys playing through me, using some tempo to try to see if I could get us in rhythm throughout the game which I knew would possibly tax our defense. They'd been on the field a lot.
But I thought it was the way we were going to get the lead back eventually was with that, and we'd find a way to get off the field, which our defense did. Helluva play by Shaq. I want to compliment Shaq, Murph. I gave Jalen Redmond the game ball. He jumped out to me at various times in the game with his play style and physicality for a young player that keeps getting better and better.
Q. What went into the decision to deactivate Ed Ingram today?
A. I'm glad you asked that. Cam Robinson did a helluva job working through that foot. He was going to give it a go, but we wanted to make sure. We felt stressed in Chicago, having only one tackle for the game beyond Cam. We wanted to get Ross up. With that, needed Dan Feeney, because he's one of our backup centers. Jurgens and Ingram, both those guys, it was the necessity of the numbers for the day.
I wouldn't read anything into it. Ed's been doing a great job. I would anticipate as we get healthy and can stack a full week for Cam together, I would anticipate Ed be back up. Absolutely nothing to do with anything larger picture or anything than that.
Q. The fourth down conversion late to Justin, can you describe what you saw?
A. Yeah. So, basically, we wanted to have -- in a world like that, that's a gotta have it as it gets. We needed to have an all-out pressure answer. We needed to have a fire zone answer, and we anticipate if it is coverage, we're probably getting some variation where they may try to have some cloud coverage to that side.
So if we were able to get the ball to Jordan off that little motion that we've hit a few times now in some big moments great. But Justin was -- I mean, the landmark, the location where he snapped up, Sam starting his arm, it was a big-time, you know, a big-time play of execution by both those guys.
And then I thought we had -- the ball got tipped on a couple plays there. T.J. on one, I know, probably finds a way in the end zone on the previous drive. And then before the fourth down, I thought we had a good chance adjusting, but they brought another all-out pressure and wanted to get the ball out. They did a great job batting it down.
Like I said, that's a team that causes a lot of consternation. And then when we showed up today, kind of overcoming a little bit of a maybe lack of energy, whatever it would be post-Thanksgiving.
But I want to compliment our fans at the end of the football game coming to life in a way that felt very -- we feel very fortunate to have our group with us all the way for 60 minutes, and they're overcoming it with us and have been a huge part of us finding our way to ten wins so far this year.
Q. You said you've learned a lot each week about this team.
A. Yes.
Q. Did you know Sam had this level of poise?
A. I think I've learned that I can -- the dialog between him and I through the headset, the ability for him to be detailed and so focused in those moments and then flat-out throw the football at a really high level, there's very few plays you go back and say, aw, shoot. He just missed that.
Fundamentally, kind of coming off a stretch where maybe we had some turnover issues, he's really played really good football now pretty consistently. Been a huge driving force behind us winning games. My confidence level in him is sky high to play the game however we need to play it, which we know we're going to get back to work and keep improving and Sam has been absolutely huge for us in the moments where everybody needs him.
Q. Can you talk about Jonathan Greenard and how is performance today --
A. Yeah, I think he was dealing with change of seasons or whatever it is. He was pretty congested and feeling head cold, whatever it was. To play that many snaps and give it everything he got, he forces the ball out earlier in the sequence. And then really I took the time-out there on fourth down to see if we could get him back in there, because he was gassed and just left everything on the field today.
J.G. has been huge for us all season long. You can look at a lot of metrics and stats and all those things. I just know the guy's been an incredibly impactful player on our defense, on our organization, and very, very fortunate to have him here.
Q. Justin looked like he was able to press the safety vertically and find space.
A. Yes.
Q. How much is he able to see his way through? I know he's seen a lot, but finding ways to detail his routes to make plays.
A. I think it's a great point. He's just having to play through it sometimes. It's very similar to when a guy is plays basketball, and there's not going to be shots no matter what you do for a guy. You look through leverages and techniques, where is the help coming from. Can we attack that with a clean pocket? Can we overcome some of the pressure looks that they bring and then allow him to go to work.
So we tried to get him the ball quicker on some plays. We got him a screen today off of kind of a receiver screen. I thought he had a huge block for Sam on a scramble and for J.A. on that red zone bubble play we ran. We were running the ball and had a run solution on there.
I with just thing he's incredibly productive, considering the circumstances of what he has to do in a
60-minute game. But nobody is going to make any excuses. It's my job to find a way to get him the ball as our best player. We're going to continue to do that.
Q. McBride today, huge volume. Talk about defensively what a handful he is to match up with.
A. I told him pregame -- he came up to me pregame and said really nice things to me. I said hey, man, I think you're one of the best going right now in the NFL because he does it so many different ways. I think that's where you saw the volume come into play today where maybe they want to be ready for pressure looks and things like that.
At the same time, he's essentially on many of those downs acting as the third wide receiver underneath, catch and un. Tons of yards after catch. Had a huge conversion. Underneath the sticks, able to get the first down.
When you really study them on tape, they're designing ways to get him the ball, and he's also a really good blocker. So it can really be a tough task as a defense because you've got to basically account for the whole playbook when these in there, based upon his skill-set. Really, really special player. I told him that before the game.
I was kind of hoping he'd go easier on us than he did, which he did not. He was incredibly impactful today.
Thanks, guys.
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