Head coach Leslie Frazier held a nearly 13-minute press conference after last week’s win over Philadelphia.
After Minnesota’s 42-14 loss to Cincinnati, it was less than six minutes.
Here’s what Frazier had to say after the Vikings largest defeat of the season.
“A tough loss, the Bengals are a better team. The guys battled I thought, we just didn’t have what it takes to come away with a win today.”
“There are certain things you have to do to win on the road, we didn’t get those things done today. They made plays when we didn’t.”
On third down defense: “We had improved in that area, today we had some difficulties on third down. We had them in some situations where you think you’ll be able to get them off the field, but we didn’t make the plays necessary to get off the field in those situations.”
On Adrian Peterson: “We ended up taking him out in that second half, didn’t think it was wise to keep playing him. Wasn’t the right thing to do to keep him in there today.”
On Cordarrelle Patterson’s kick returns leading to good field position: “We didn’t take advantage of that, when you don’t take advantage of those situations on the road, it’s going to come back to get you.”
On Matt Cassel: “The turnovers are always an issue in our league, that’s hard to overcome. Hard to win when you’re doing that.”
Will Cassel be your starter next week. “We’ll sit down and talk about it, but my initial thoughts would be yes.”
On injuries: “It’s been tough now. I’m not going to sugar coat that. Where we were today, we tried our best to maximize the roster. The good thing about those guys (the backups), they’re playing as hard as they can.”
On Audie Cole’s injury that forced him to leave early: “An ankle sprain, not sure if it’s a high-ankle sprain, but it is an ankle sprain.”
On his job security: “We’ll have some internal discussions, but we have one more game in this season. I’m looking forward to hopefully coaching that final game and getting us a win.”
Frazier saying he will “hopefully” coach the team’s final game leaves room for speculation that he may be out the door prior to the 2013 finale. Regardless, if you’d like to hear all of Frazier’s comments, here you go.
