HEAD COACH JIM SCHWARTZ

On whether self-inflicted appropriately describes the game:

"When you turn balls over in the red zone, that's self-inflicted. When you give up 80-yard runs, that's self inflicted. There's other things that I thought we made good plays on and we had things called back. It wasn't called back because of a false start or because of a penalty; it was called back because of our aggressiveness. That stuff's going to happen. We need to do a better job of not letting it happen. It's taking us away from a position to score or putting an opponent in a position to score. We had, I don't know, three turnovers that were called back because of penalties. We had a couple scoring chances, including before the missed field goal, we had a first down that got called back for a holding penalty."

On special teams errors:

"We need to secure the football. Stefan (Logan) has done a really good job of returning but that wasn’t a good play for us. We need to be able to get that ball and not worry about getting yards until after we catch the football. So obviously that was a big thing, particularly after the turnover on defense. We had gone and taken the lead and we let them right back in it. That’s something that we can’t allow to happen."

On Jahvid Best:

"He had a toe and wasn’t able to finish."

On how long his toe has been bothering him:

"The first week it did. He aggravated it today."

On how Best’s absence impacted the offense:

"You guys have seen the plays that he can make and the times that he can gain yards. I though early in this game he was doing that, we saw those kinds of things. Obviously there was a drop off. We weren’t able to consistently run the football. When he was in there and was healthy, we were at least running. It turned it one-dimensional. Shaun battled his way through it, but when it’s one-dimensional, eventually you’re going to get sacks, you’re going to get interceptions just because you don’t have a run game."

On if he considered going for the touchdown at the end of the first half:

"Yeah we were thinking about that. I was going to call the time out and take a shot, but then you (could) get a ball that’s not in the endzone or a ball that’s intercepted, or get a sack or one of those things. The other (drive) we had gone down without points. We missed a field goal, and I wanted to make sure we didn’t come down (without points). It was 14-7 at that point and I thought it was important that we get points. I wanted to make sure that we were in a positive position to do that."

On what made it difficult for the offense to move with consistency:

"I thought that we did move the ball with more consistency than it shows. Obviously those turnovers take away some long drives that we put together. The same thing with some of those calls that went against us. We had first downs, we were moving the ball. That’s good, tough defense. You just need to capitalize when you have chances. When we did, we had plays called back with penalties, or we ended up with turnovers when we got down in the red zone."

On the short-yardage running game:

"Obviously we haven’t gotten it done the first couple of weeks. We also made one on 3rd down-and-1. We had a quarterback sneak where we made one. We need to do a better job in all facets, including short yardage. We’ll look at everything that we can do, but when it comes time to get a yard, we need to be able to get that down to 50-percent of proposition."

On Adrian Peterson’s long run:

"No. 1, he’s a good running back. He’s hard to tackle. We made it a little bit easier. He’s the kind of guy that, (if) one guy’s out of his gap and he makes one guy miss, then he can be gone. That’s what happened on that play."

On the defensive line:

"We were getting good pressure. We forced them into a lot of max-up-protection scheme. I thought early on we were doing a good job stopping the run. I don’t know where (Adrian) Peterson’s numbers were at the half, but I’m guessing it was 3.5 yards a carry or less, or something like that. We’re doing a good job there, but it’s not about one half, it’s about finishing the game. Getting after (Brett) Favre, when he had the ball on the ground a couple times. We also had some opportunities where we let him hold the ball for a lot longer than we needed to and our coverage broke down on the back end."

On Landon Johnson:

"He got injured in practice on Friday."

On the pushing/shoving match during the game:

"Our guys were fighting, and their guys were fighting and emotions were high in the game."

On how he handles the team’s frustration level at 0-3:

"You need to objectively look at where we are as a team. You need to be able to say, ‘Okay, what are the reasons we’ve lost games? How do we correct those?’ We’ve dealt with some injuries. There’s absolutely no excuse. We’ve had guys step up. That hasn’t limited us from having a chance to win and be in the game. We just need to develop a little bit more of an instinct to finish. We started off the game 7-0, we turned the ball over on a punt and let them right back in the game. That’s stuff that we just need to do a better job of. We need to get them down early. We need to get the foot to the floor and stretch out the lead, rather than give it back to them."

On CB Chris Houston and G Stephen Peterman:

"Those guys weren’t able to finish the game. Houston, Peterman, Aaron Brown, Jahvid. There’s probably some more in there too, but that’s an NFL game. There’s going to be a lot of things that come up in the game. Our job is to find a way to finish the game regardless of who is out."

On whether any of the injuries are serious:

"It’s probably too early to tell."

LB JULIAN PETERSON

On what went wrong with the defense in the third quarter:

"Just a couple of little breakdowns. The plays we keep on giving up, it’s not really the whole game. It’ll be one play and it’ll be a big play. We have to find a way to rally and get off the field or make a play."

On if he sees this game as a missed opportunity:

"Yes, this is three times that we’ve had missed opportunities. We can’t keep on affording that. We’re going down a slippery slope. We have to find a way to get out of this hole and look at the film, see what we can do right and correct it."

On If the Vikings did anything offensively that surprised them:

"Pretty much what we expected, we just have to make plays when they’re presented. That’s pretty much what it is."

DT COREY WILLIAMS

On how he feels after the game:

"It doesn’t feel good at all. We just have to keep fighting."

On his interception:

"It was a screen, and I read the screen and picked the ball off. I wish I could’ve scored on it, but the good thing is that the offense got the ball and punched it in. So, that was a plus. It was a great play."

On how it felt to intercept a pass from Vikings QB Brett Favre:

"It felt really good to get a pick from a future Hall of Famer. I should’ve scored, but I didn’t. Just to get the pick, it was a good feeling."

On where the defense is right now:

"This team right now, we just have to keep fighting. We have to keep pulling together and eliminate the big plays and the penalties. That’s been our downfall these first three games, big plays and penalties. We’re a good team, but it doesn’t show when you’re giving up good plays and you have a lot of penalties."