moniqx4
Starter
Q: Nice win, on the road against your division rivals. Even though the game meant nothing in terms of going to playoffs, how did you keep your guys motivated ?
Coach: The team understands how important it is to stay on top of our game, for every game. Nobody likes losing, especially to a division rival regardless of the overall situation. So to us its like a playoff game, we look at it is a leg up for next season. Go out winning, and come in winning next season. Give those guys something to worry about next year when we meet up.
Q: You guys started out kinda of sluggish. Packers first drive defense, let them score a touchdown. then the early pick from Bridgewater. Then you guys got a small lead and let them score to take the lead, making those last 2 minutes a do or die situation, especially with the missed long field goal. What was going on in your head in that last quarter ?
Coach: We needed for the defense to make a big stop and give us an opportunity to get back out there. I told the defense, its a long ride home with a loss and makes it real hard to get over since you can't come back next week and make up for it. Told the offense, if the defense makes this stand, they owe it to the defense to score and leave it in their hands to make that score stick and they both came through. Very proud of them staying focused and not giving up. It was cold, not the best conditions out their, it would of been real easy to just call it a wrap and go home. But these guys have heart and integrity and wanted to give the fans something to look forward to next year.
Q: During the whole game never able to get the running game going. Was it Packers just covering the run so well, or your guys not making the plays without Peterson there ?
Coach: With the weather conditions on the field, its slippery and its hard for the running backs to dig in and make things happen. I don't think it would of mattered with Peterson out there, but you never know with him. I told both McKinnon and Asiati to be sure and protect the ball, so I rather get short yardage then cough it up because of trying to make a play under those slippery and wet conditions. So it didn't surprise me that we failed to pickup many yards in the running game today.
Q: It was nice to see Bridgewater come through in the passing game and get the ball in the hands of the receivers versus relying on the run game. Cordarrelle Patterson had a great game pulling in two touchdowns, as well as Rudolph making some big yardage plays and Wallace also showing some of his elusiveness. Can we expect to see more of this next season?
Coach: We want a balanced team, so when one thing is shutdown we have options and that's what will be working towards in the off-season. Cordarrelle has been working real hard to get more opportunities with the ball, His efforts have been paying off, so yes expect to see him targeted more. Wallace did well for his first year with us and, and he'll only get better as he gets more comfortable with our offensive system. Rudolph, what can you say about him, we call him old reliable around here. He is just a workhorse and there when you need him.
Q: You guys won your last 4 games of the season, a little too late. Apparently, whatever changes you had made, worked well. Why were you guys not able to make these changes sooner?
Coach: I think we were finally getting in our rhythm and figuring out what works for us. Its one of those things where you hope your team comes together faster, and it doesn't. Majority of that fault is with our coaching staff, and some of the decisions we made early on. I guess you could say we finally were getting on the same page. Good thing for us , is we're past that stage in our development as a team and we can build on those wins next year and come out the gate a lot stronger
Q: In this offseason, what areas do you plan on focusing on for next season?
Coach: Well we have struggled on our offensive line and that is one of our number 1 priorities at this time. If we expect to allow Bridgewater to use the skills we drafted him for, we are going to need get him better protection from the offensive line and not only that we need them to open up holes for our running game, which has also struggled. I think defensively and our backfield we are in good shape, and will work on making them better and do our best to keep everything intact and ready for next year.
Q: Last question, with Peterson returning the fans and the media had higher expectations for this team for the season. They felt that was this missing piece and you guys should of been at least a playoff team. What are your thoughts on that?
Coach: We had higher expectations as well, but we had to make changes to our gameplan and those adjustments were not as effective as we wanted them to be. I think we learned a lot this season and we had a lot of close games that had we been able to make better adjustments, we could have easily had a winning record. That tells me we have the talent, we as the coaching staff have to a do a better job of getting them prepared for these games, and we failed to do that this year. So our biggest challenge is for our coaching staff to do a better job of guiding this team next season.
Good Luck next season, we all look forward to seeing the Viking next season, and wish for the best.
Coach: Thank-you.
Coach: The team understands how important it is to stay on top of our game, for every game. Nobody likes losing, especially to a division rival regardless of the overall situation. So to us its like a playoff game, we look at it is a leg up for next season. Go out winning, and come in winning next season. Give those guys something to worry about next year when we meet up.
Q: You guys started out kinda of sluggish. Packers first drive defense, let them score a touchdown. then the early pick from Bridgewater. Then you guys got a small lead and let them score to take the lead, making those last 2 minutes a do or die situation, especially with the missed long field goal. What was going on in your head in that last quarter ?
Coach: We needed for the defense to make a big stop and give us an opportunity to get back out there. I told the defense, its a long ride home with a loss and makes it real hard to get over since you can't come back next week and make up for it. Told the offense, if the defense makes this stand, they owe it to the defense to score and leave it in their hands to make that score stick and they both came through. Very proud of them staying focused and not giving up. It was cold, not the best conditions out their, it would of been real easy to just call it a wrap and go home. But these guys have heart and integrity and wanted to give the fans something to look forward to next year.
Q: During the whole game never able to get the running game going. Was it Packers just covering the run so well, or your guys not making the plays without Peterson there ?
Coach: With the weather conditions on the field, its slippery and its hard for the running backs to dig in and make things happen. I don't think it would of mattered with Peterson out there, but you never know with him. I told both McKinnon and Asiati to be sure and protect the ball, so I rather get short yardage then cough it up because of trying to make a play under those slippery and wet conditions. So it didn't surprise me that we failed to pickup many yards in the running game today.
Q: It was nice to see Bridgewater come through in the passing game and get the ball in the hands of the receivers versus relying on the run game. Cordarrelle Patterson had a great game pulling in two touchdowns, as well as Rudolph making some big yardage plays and Wallace also showing some of his elusiveness. Can we expect to see more of this next season?
Coach: We want a balanced team, so when one thing is shutdown we have options and that's what will be working towards in the off-season. Cordarrelle has been working real hard to get more opportunities with the ball, His efforts have been paying off, so yes expect to see him targeted more. Wallace did well for his first year with us and, and he'll only get better as he gets more comfortable with our offensive system. Rudolph, what can you say about him, we call him old reliable around here. He is just a workhorse and there when you need him.
Q: You guys won your last 4 games of the season, a little too late. Apparently, whatever changes you had made, worked well. Why were you guys not able to make these changes sooner?
Coach: I think we were finally getting in our rhythm and figuring out what works for us. Its one of those things where you hope your team comes together faster, and it doesn't. Majority of that fault is with our coaching staff, and some of the decisions we made early on. I guess you could say we finally were getting on the same page. Good thing for us , is we're past that stage in our development as a team and we can build on those wins next year and come out the gate a lot stronger
Q: In this offseason, what areas do you plan on focusing on for next season?
Coach: Well we have struggled on our offensive line and that is one of our number 1 priorities at this time. If we expect to allow Bridgewater to use the skills we drafted him for, we are going to need get him better protection from the offensive line and not only that we need them to open up holes for our running game, which has also struggled. I think defensively and our backfield we are in good shape, and will work on making them better and do our best to keep everything intact and ready for next year.
Q: Last question, with Peterson returning the fans and the media had higher expectations for this team for the season. They felt that was this missing piece and you guys should of been at least a playoff team. What are your thoughts on that?
Coach: We had higher expectations as well, but we had to make changes to our gameplan and those adjustments were not as effective as we wanted them to be. I think we learned a lot this season and we had a lot of close games that had we been able to make better adjustments, we could have easily had a winning record. That tells me we have the talent, we as the coaching staff have to a do a better job of getting them prepared for these games, and we failed to do that this year. So our biggest challenge is for our coaching staff to do a better job of guiding this team next season.
Good Luck next season, we all look forward to seeing the Viking next season, and wish for the best.
Coach: Thank-you.