Full Transcript for Vikings Postgame Report: The Minnesota Vikings Fall 23-6 To The Buffalo Bills, Move To 6-2 - WK 9

him 31. His long run was 11. Yeah, 31 carries to get there and... Yeah, the more you dig into the numbers, the more maddening this all becomes. And it wasn't like they cured themselves from penalties. They took themselves out of field goal range on one play, turned it into a punt. They kept it a one-score game. I mean, you had so many opportunities. Special teams. I thought outside the opening kickoff return, the special teams unit played great. Thorson was so good. Well, it was recovered. Yeah, that's true. You know, that's his, what, third or fourth? He's lost two already this year. Fourth in the. 00:06:52 Speaker 1: Rookie punter, four punts inside the 20. 00:06:54 Speaker 2: He had an outstanding day today. And then, you know, from a field position battle or field position standpoint, I think special teams was a win, right? It was a win when we made every field goal we attempted. And so we just need to get in a position where we can attempt more of them. And the bottom line is this. You're playing for getting back into the division lead. against the Green Bay Packers this weekend. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: They just scored 45. 00:07:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, and they just scored 45 against a very anemic New England defense. So that's the reality of the situation. What you did tonight, it's up to the coaching staff, the front office, to figure out what is going on and how do you fix it. Because it went from bad to worse. 00:07:39 Speaker 1: Here is Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell after a 23-6 victory by the Buffalo Bills. 00:07:47 Speaker 3: I just want to start out with injuries. Ty Ingram Dawkins had an ankle, did not return. Van Nooy had a calf and was evaluated and did return. We had a few other guys get evaluated, but all returned. In no way, shape, or form was tonight acceptable. I told the team it starts with me and And 100% defense was on the field too much. Thought they battled. Thought we made some plays in the kicking game. Just not even close offensively to what we want to be. Thought there were some opportunities to kind of flip that game a little bit at multiple times. But we just never got Carson in a rhythm. And tried a bunch of tools to see if we could help that happen. And just I didn't do a good enough job doing that. Across the board, our team, they'll stick together. We're 6-2. That's what our record is. We've got to go back to work, and we've got to go back to work and really evaluate what gives our team the best chance to win and play the game accordingly. So put tonight 100% on me. It's not about any one particular player, but we've got to improve offensively at a rapid pace. With a divisional game on a short week, our guys will handle it the right way. We'll get them turned over, and we'll go compete. When you say it starts with you, what could you have done better in this game? I've got to go back and look at it. When you feel like early on in the game maybe your quarterback's a little unsettled, you go through the different phases, whether it's just some quick games, some ball-out plays. You try to give them a chance to get into a rhythm. I thought it looked like it was happening there at the two-minute maybe at the end of the half. We just couldn't carry it over. We had TJ there on the interception on the first drive of the second half. We just left the ball a little short. There was some space there, but I've got to call a better play. I've got to find a better way of... attacking the defense. Like I said, I put it on myself, and I understand that in no way, shape, or form I feel terrible for our fans. Monday night football, unbelievable atmosphere, and we've got to be better. 00:10:17 Speaker 4: You said You've got to figure out what gives your team the best chance to win offensively. 00:10:22 Speaker 1: With how bad things are going right now, what is that? 00:10:25 Speaker 3: I think it comes down to the biggest issue with tonight was if we got into the run-run pass, we're trying to get a quarterback into a little bit of a rhythm on third down, which was an incredibly difficult down for us tonight, both from a standpoint of throwing completions, putting the ball in play, I thought we had some opportunities on some of those early down looks, specifically to get Justin going, specifically to get maybe TJ or Jordan some potential opportunities to impact the game. Carson's a veteran quarterback, so you go through the game plan. You build the plan through the conversations and dialogue. We had a lot of plays we felt really good about going into the game. It clearly did not come to fruition in any way, shape, or form. 00:11:16 Speaker 4: Quarterback is, you know, not settled, as you said. How do you balance trying to get him into a rhythm versus gearing down towards the running game more? 00:11:24 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:11:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I should have run the football more and then just lived, you know, lived out those third downs. We only had eight of them because we didn't possess the football enough, but also, you know, because we did, you know, when we did get first downs, it was, you know, trying to see if we could, get some completions, move the football, and then get a good mixture going. Like I said, just not good enough by me, Kevin. 00:11:56 Speaker 4: Were you trying to get him in rhythm when you had that simple backwards pass? 00:12:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just all week long. That pass had never been backwards all week long. We talked about trying to get away from center a little bit to make sure it was forward. Just threw one high and hot and And, you know, that was an example of, okay, let's get Justin to touch with some blockers out in front. And, you know, had some criteria to the play that, you know, with it being man, would have liked to maybe get to the, you know, that aspect of it. And we didn't. And then on top of that, you know, it's just a pitch and catch play. And the issues right now is our preparation is not coming

to the stadium with us. And there's a little bit of a, there's a little bit of a, you know, a void of if we could bring some of that and what we see on the practice field to the stadium, we've got to figure that out, whether it's, you know, how we prepare, you know, the types of, we've, you know, cut volume back and we've, you know, we need to get better. I did think we got some execution out of some guys. I thought, you know, specifically against that front, you know, the, you know, that's a really, really talented front. I thought our O-line battled. There was some pressure here and there, but they battled to, you know, give Carson some time and then even in the end, you know, to give Max a chance to move the team in the two-minute. 00:13:22 Speaker 2: Kevin, it looked like Carson had maybe hit his hand on a helmet there. Was there anything that he said about that or the accuracy? 00:13:29 Speaker 3: No, he just, no, he, you know, I believe he was evaluated for an ankle and did get that taped and he was cleared to return. But outside of that, I did not hear about anything with his hand. 00:13:42 Speaker 1: Kevin, in your experience as a play caller, has it ever felt as challenging as it does right now? 00:13:46 Speaker 3: No. Kevin, if Kyler can't play Sunday. 00:13:49 Speaker 4: What do you do? 00:13:51 Speaker 3: Well, I think we've got to see where Kyler's at first and foremost, and then we'll make a determination. Whatever the situation is, we'll make a determination, what we think gives us the best chance to win and go on the road and try to get our seventh win. 00:14:08 Speaker 4: Coach, you said your guys were executing at practice, but it's not carrying over to the game. 00:14:12 Speaker 3: Do you think it's maybe too much on their plate from a schematic standpoint? I don't, just because we've really kind of worked through cutting down volume and trying to do some things to help Justin in some of the coverages we see, trying to have some ways of getting more runs off, predicated on some looks and things like that. But our guys were really confident going into the game. 00:14:37 Speaker 2: Top, you know. 00:14:38 Speaker 3: Our entire offense felt really confident with the plan. It just didn't, you know, there was, you got to be able to make one or two of those plays, you know, get the, you know, not only get your offense going, but really ignite, you know, the team and the stadium and keep the energy up because it was fantastic and it was hard on them. And then, you know, obviously their ability to just run the football and, you know, possess the football just made it difficult, you know. Tried to challenge the sneak and thought we had him stopped on fourth down. And they overturned that one. You know, obviously, Gink, that play is inches away from being first and goal to one because of our defense, you know, getting the ball off of their quarterback and just, you know, all of those times where truly, you know, the momentum could be maybe set just by the positivity of scoring. Didn't go our way, but that's in no way, shape, or form an excuse that I'm willing to accept. 00:15:38 Speaker 4: I know it's a quick turnaround to the trade deadline, but is there any chance or any thought in your mind of at least considering acquiring a quarterback? 00:15:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll defer to Nolan on that. We've had dialogue about a lot of different positions and tight turnaround, obviously playing the Monday night game before that, and we'll get right to work on any potential moves that can be there, but really just focused on you know, the game tonight, which was not good enough in any way, shape, or form. Coach, how frustrating is it when you guys have performances like you do defensively and can't help them out? Yeah, I mean, you said it. It's very, very frustrating. You know you're not far off from making a couple plays to maybe support that group. Like I said, I did think we got some good returns out of Miles Price and, you know, played the field position game a little bit. with them and, you know, had some short field opportunities where, you know, we've just got to find a way to turn that into points. 00:16:42 Speaker 1: Obviously, he's perplexed. Carson Wentz didn't finish the game. Max Brosmer finished the game. They tried to activate Jefferson early, middle and late. And I guess they kind of did late. Jordan Addison didn't have a catch until like the final minute and a half of the game. I mean, so that, you know, that was a buzzkill in his own right. Where do you go from here? 00:17:05 Speaker 2: The defense is going to have to continue to say, hey, we're going to carry this team. We're going to do what we need to do. The offense is going to have to start small, and that's just literally moving the chains, getting some first downs, taking some accountability on that end of it. 00:17:22 Speaker 1: And where they go, now the NFL trade deadline is Tuesday, 3 o'clock Central. These are professionals, and the new general manager, Nolan Teasley, just won a Super Bowl with Seattle. He was there a decade and change. So he's seen bad Seahawks seasons, and he's seen seasons where they've hoisted the Lombardi trophy. The point I'm getting at here is you are 6-2 coming up on the trade deadline. You just got to make sure you don't, like, overpay, panic. 00:17:52 Speaker 2: I don't know how to put it, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You would think that after a game like this, it would make you even more motivated, but you've got to– You really, I mean, the whole thought or concept of a quarterback out there in a trade, unless he is the answer to the future, this has to be one of the most frustrating losses I've seen out of this team because of the opportunity that was there, right? I mean, you beat the Bills, you can beat anybody, and they played well enough defensively to beat this team. We played well enough on special teams to beat this team. It I don't even know. I'm at a lost words and I've got to be careful about it because you're emotional at this time. 00:18:37 Speaker 1: Well, you're frustrated, but you care. You're a former player and coach for the team, man. 00:18:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, you've just got to be careful with this. Honestly, it may be a blessing in disguise to get back on the field quickly and get this bad taste out of your mouth. That's the only choice that you have. That's the reality of the situation. They're not going to cancel the game Sunday against the Packers. So you guys have got to figure out how you are going to win. 00:18:58 Speaker 1: The Vikings offense averaged 3.9 yards per play. 0 for 8 on third down, didn't score a touchdown. We'll see what happens Sunday from Lambeau Field. Great job. See you in Appleton. All right, see you. That's Pete Bursich. I'm Paul Allen. Buffalo beat Minnesota 23-6. The Vikings have lost two in a row. They no longer are in first place in the NFC North, but they are 6-2. Thank you for listening to the Vikings postgame report at vikings.com.