Here’s something new.
It’s Leslie Frazier speaking to us after a win, rather than a loss.
The coach was in visibly better spirits after looking beaten down after each of the last few losses.
Here’s what he had to say about Minnesota’s second W of the season.
“I’m sure, like myself, you guys are happy the Minnesota Vikings got a win on a Thursday night. It’s a lot more fun when you get wins in our league, they’re hard to come by.”
“There were times where the guys could’ve said ‘oh no, here we go again,’ but they didn’t. Extremely proud of every guy that dresses for us.”
On Ponder: “It’s a dislocated shoulder, we’ll learn more about it in the days to come. Hopefully it won’t keep him out, but we’ll see. It’s his non-throwing shoulder, but time will tell.”
On Kevin Williams two-and-a-half sack performance: “He was very focused throughout the week, determined to come back and help our team get a win. You could see he was on edge throughout the week.”
“Our coaches really got after the guys (in the locker room at halftime) about their performance. Alan Williams was really on the defense about tackling, we made a few adjustments, our guys responded. He (Williams) was more fired up than I’ve ever seen him.”
“Christian has really grown as a leader, he never got shaken even after that interception, that did not cause him to have self-doubt, he came back and played some of his best football.”
On Ponder’s injury: “Next man up, you feel bad for Christian, but you have a capable backup in Matt (Cassel) who came in and did a good job.”
On the use of timeouts late in the second half: “Wanted to make sure that our guys weren’t a little fatigued, and I wanted our offense to have the chance if they did score to come back and respond.”
On injuries coming into the game: “It was hard, but you have to credit our guys, they were determined to win this game. They were going to figure out a way to win.”
On John Carlson: “Great to see him step up and play the way he did, we needed it. It increases our confidence in him.”
On quarterbacks for next game: “We’ll talk about that when we get back, just want to bask in the glory of this win a little bit.”
To clarify on Cassel: “When I said he wasn’t in the mix, that was as a starter. You’ll notice Matt was our number two tonight, it was a different set of circumstances. Now we’ll reevaluate.”
Concerned about players reactions to timeouts on sidelines? “Not at all, I’ve learned being a coach you better do it the way you believe in doing it. You don’t have a chance to do this very long, so you don’t want to have any regrets.”
On forcing the first punt in quite some time at the Metrodome: “I was saying hooray, hooray, hooray. We’re going to make people punt the second half of the season.”
If you’d like to see the entire Frazier presser, here it is.
