HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ
On the “difference” in the game
“Obviously the difference in the game was the first two drives of the second half. We had battled pretty good and were in good position to come out in the second half. We had the ball in the beginning of the second half and started off with a poor kickoff return, three plays and out, losing yardage on offense, defense goes out and allows a score and then offense comes back, fumbles and we give up another score and it’s a ten point turnaround right at the beginning of the second half. The rest of the game sort of played out, but that was the difference in this game. We knew what challenge we had with a running back with Adrian Peterson. You can bottle him up for nine snaps in a row and then if you don’t protect your edge, if you miss one tackle, he can go 30 yards or 25 or 66 with a long play. There’s no consolation in the fact that you stuff his run five out of six times. We didn’t do a good job protecting our edge and we ended up paying the price for it.”
On the breakdown of the offense
“Oh in the third quarter, yeah we had blown protection right there; our offense broke down right there.”
On how that happens on the first play
“They gave us a different front and it happened. There’s no way you can sit there at halftime and say ‘Hey this is exactly what they’re going to line up in and this is what they’re going to do.’ They give you different looks. It was a breakdown on the offense."
On whether or not it was a mental breakdown on the offense
“Yes. Yes, it was missed assignment. Yeah we don’t have a play designed where we let…if that’s the case let’s reconsider those schemes. Yeah we don’t have a play designed where we let Jarred Allen free. He’s a good enough player without letting him go like that.”
On QB 
“The first one, maybe trying to do a little too much. You know the first one is a second down sprint play designed to pick up the first and probably would have been better off if they had covered the route really well, better off throwing an incompletion there rather than trying to make a play. He almost treated it like it was a third down rather than a second down. Then late in the game the linebackers were extra deep and underneath the tight end and it’s a little bit of what we talked about last week with when you’re down in the game and you’ve got to make plays the opposing defense knows that you’ve got to do that so they’re going to get deeper. We’re better off checking the ball down there, getting five, six, seven yards and going rather than throwing the pick right there.”
On passing vs. running
“We wanted to run the football and we knew, it’s hard to take shots when that defensive line is rushing. There’s a clock on the quarterback and I thought that they did a good job of getting the ball out particularly early in the game; trying to be efficient , running the ball, boot, all those kinds of things and trying to keep things off balance. As soon as the game, and I keep pointing back to those couple of drives of the third quarter, as soon as the game turned there, then all of the sudden we weren’t able to stick with that game plan and Minnesota was able to play a different way on defense because all of the sudden we were trying to play catch up.”
On Stafford and his rookie mistakes being ‘a given’
“I don’t necessarily concede that because a lot of rookie mistakes at quarterback are misreads. They don’t know what the defense is doing. Those two plays were overaggressive. Those two plays were sometimes understanding that discretion is the better part of valor and checking the ball down or throwing an incompletion and sometimes understand that an incompletion is not necessarily a bad play. Those are experienced plays. It’s not necessarily what you would term ‘a rookie mistake’ where, ‘Hey, they ran a defense that we didn’t know.’ He fooled the quarterback or one of those. They’re just aggressive mistakes.”
QB MATTHEW STAFFORD
On his first NFL TD
“The line did a good job of picking up – they were coming with some heat – and Calvin ran a good little in cut and I hit him and he did a good job of running into the end zone. He made a good play.”
On whether it was easier to play with a lead early in the game
“Our game plan was to come out and run the football and we did that really well. At the start of the second half going three-and-out there really didn’t help us. Then we kind of gave them a short field because we didn’t move the ball and that’s tough with that offense and put our defense in a hole, and they came out with some points, and we just didn’t really get anything going in the second half.”
On what could have gone differently to keep the game in control
“That one drive we moved the ball and got it to second and four, had a 3-yard run and then it was third and one, and they just blanketed our rollout. I had nowhere to go with the ball and threw that one away. If we could have picked that up somehow someway and had come up with some points in there it could have changed the game. It’s on all of us, we’ve got to a better job maybe try to do better on first and second down.”
On how the game turned at the beginning of the second half
“I think they had some confidence. That first drive when they got us to go three-and-out I don’t think we had gone three-and-out the four game. We were moving the ball well in the first half and putting points on the board and they did a good job playing defense. Nobody blocked Jared Allen, miscommunication up front, and he did what he was supposed to do. That gave them some confidence and we had a good gain on second down, and third and long is tough in this league especially in negative territory.”
On if he sees progress from Week 1
“There are more positives this week for us as an offense than I think there were last week. We’ve still got to put up more than we did, to tell you the truth. We were moving the ball really well and felt like we had them on our heels and only came away with 10 points in the first half, and we could have put another three or another seven and maybe changed the game a little bit. But guys played hard, guys played well in some spots, we’ve just got to put it all together."
On the atmosphere in the home opener
“It was great getting introduced to the fans, going crazy for us and getting loud. They were great in the first half and it’s our job to give them something to cheer about in the second half too.”
On what he has learned in his second game
“I think I did a pretty good job, except for that one interception, of being patient. The defense is trying to test your patience and I was checking it down a lot and letting guys run with it after the catch and that’s what you have to do against them especially there late in the game and that was good, and we did a pretty good job of blocking a heck of a defensive line that was trying to bring some pressure on us.”
DE JASON HUNTER
On the defense in the first half
“We came out of the game aggressive. We had a game plan. I think, in the first half our guys came out spirited, enthusiastic. We had a lot of fire, a lot of pop. We executed really well I thought in the first half of the game.”
On what changed in the second half
“Momentum. We allowed their team to get momentum and they sustained it, and we didn’t counterpunch it and attack areas we needed to attack. We kind of just had a letdown and in this league everybody being as good as they are, that’s the difference between winning and losing a game
mistakes. If you don’t play mistake-free football, then things like that will happen.”
On dealing with the loss
“It’s definitely a hard one to digest, because you always want to win your divisional games and coming into this game we practiced hard, executed during the week, all the guys were up for this game and like I said, to play that well in the first half and to come out in the second half and have some of the things that happened to us is definitely hard to digest and something that we’ll definitely get corrected, and we’re going to have a really good team. We’ve just got to focus on the little things, and the little things are the difference between winning and losing a game.”
K JASON HANSON
On how the Vikings took over the game in the second half“They came out and stuck it to us, and that’s disappointing because you knew it was a tie game basically and whoever was going to come out and stick it to the other team was going to get it done and we didn’t match their intensity or execution—I’m not sure which it is obviously as the kicker—but that hurt because they just started pounding it on us. We had a few opportunities but we had some turnovers. I don’t know if you call them growing pains, but there’s some fight, there are some good things and then there’s some disintegration out there, things that let them into the game.”
On if he sees the team improving
“Well, we’re making progress, but we’re coming from the bottom. So, while I wasn’t expecting to lose both these games, that happens when you make mistakes against these teams that are pretty good. It’s disheartening to keep losing, but at the same time we are doing some things better. It’s a different attitude and everything, but we’ve got to fight right now before this starts to snowball and media and fans, rightfully, are going to be like ‘oh here we go…’ We’ve got to cut that right now and do whatever it takes to win.”
On his recovery from a knee injury
“I feel normal. There were some kicks in warm-ups where it was like, the ball didn’t go as far as I thought it would, or the timing was a little off, but that’s coming. I’m way over the hump, its normal now so it’s just fine tuning. The doctors did a great job, the rehab did good, so that’s over with, and I just look forward to getting some kicks at the end of the game and having it be where we’re going up by three or up by 21 or something. We’ll get there but we need to get through the fire right now.”
