THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011
Vikings Offensive Coordinator Bill Musgrave
Good morning. We had a good practice yesterday, first one for the rookie and we will look to build on it today with our third down, short yardage and goal line periods that are always included on Thursdays.
Q: Do you game plan the same way with Christian versus Donovan?
A: Yeah we do, we feel like we can go forward with a full complement. We want to expand each and every week and be tough to defend, but we don’t feel like we need to put the brakes on in any regard.
Q: Leslie said he had seen Ponder make real leaps in practice, do you agree with that?
A: I would agree with that. He has done a good job of running the opposing team’s offense from the cards. While a lot of us have similar concepts throughout the League, he got some time on task with some routes and concepts that we employ so it was good for him to get out there a little bit, even though it was off of a card.
Q: What percentage of snaps do you typically give to your backup throughout the regular season?
A: It really varies on the starter. Some starters require 100%; other guys would rather take 7 or 8 out of 10. With Christian we are going to try to give him as many as we can to make up for lost time. As we move through the season we may scale that back a little bit as we try to keep his arm and legs fresh for every Sunday.
Q: How much time was he getting as a backup?
A: He wasn’t getting a lot. We wanted to make sure that Donovan was up to speed on limited preparation down in Mankato. Donovan got the majority and Christian would get sprinkled in when we thought a concept was down pat with Donovan.
Q: You talked about Christian having that sixth sense where he can feel the pressure coming and naturally move away from it while keeping his eyes downfield, it seems like that is a skill that rookie quarterbacks probably need the most.
A: It does definitely come in handy. I remember when Jason Campbell was at Washington, he had that sense. He had it at Auburn. Those guys are born with that. John Elway had that, Steve Young had that. It’s just something that keeps those guys alive on the field and extend the down and ad lib somewhat.
Q: With your experience with Matt Ryan, what was the hardest part to figure out in the first game?
A: The biggest challenge for a young guy, whether it is a quarterback or a position player, is to be able to focus on what is really important. There are a lot of different factors in mind, and it’s just human nature to think about it all. It comes down to playing one play at a time, we say focus in on the little pictures, make sure when you do throw the ball that its accurate, that you throw it on time, your footwork, you make the right check or audible at the line of scrimmage rather than thinking about the ramifications or implications of whether the play would work or not. There are so many things running through a young guys mind along with those butterflies that if they can just focus on the fundamentals and techniques the end result would be acceptable.
Q: How much going through six weeks of game plans and listening to the calls on the headset for six games, how much do those things help a young quarterback?
A: It helps to a certain degree, but you are not going to get any benefit until you are out there doing it. You have to be between the hashes to really receive an authentic benefit. To know where to go in warm-ups to know where to sit on the team bus and where to do the meetings the night before, to be on the trips to be an ‘ERW’ as we say, an ‘Eat, Ride, and Warm-up’ type of player. You really are not learning how to play the game until you get to play it.
Q: What was your first NFL start like?
A: It was against the same team. It was in my 5th year, it wasn’t in my 7th game my rookie year, so I had a few more experiences to draw upon, but again, until you are out there, it’s quite different.
Q: How much different is what Christian gives you versus what Donovan gives you in terms of play selection?
A: It will be different because Donovan has a ton more experience. Completely clean slate with Christian, so he will have less opinions and history to draw upon. He will know what he is comfortable with. We all know what turns he got in Mankato and we will try to run some of those so we don’t throw him out there with too many things that he has not had enough turns with.
Q: How much does that input shape the first scripted plays of the game?
A: It does to a certain extent. We always tell those guys they have input, but I have veto power. When we make the final decision as a staff we are going that direction full-bore.
Q: You have had a number of botched exchanges in the first few games, now you have a banged up center and a new quarterback, is that a concern for you?
A: Ball security is always a concern for us. We want to keep possession and not put it on the ground for them. We want to keep those exchanges secure. That’s one of those fundamentals that we need to focus on.
Q: If Phil Loadholt
can’t go, is it Pat Brown again?
A: It is.
Q: So is Demarcus Love mainly concentrating on the left side?
A: He has to know both. Those guys need to know both.
Q: Were you able to gauge how much the rookie camps and OTAs helped guys you have had? Christian didn’t have that
A: It helped in certain situations; you get to script a bunch of different situations in those OTAs. Which is really two weeks of training camp in June. So he is a little bit depleted in those regards, but we had a lot in Mankato and those four preseason games, which he should be ok with. We will just need to do a good job of compensating for that loss of time.
Q: How late are you guys staying here this week?
A: Well we are tempted to burn the midnight oil, as we always do as coaches, but we don’t want to wear him out and cause him to leave his game in the bullpen either.
Q: With Christian starting, is that going to affect the use of Joe Webb?
A: It shouldn’t, we still want to get Joe on the field and let him do his thing and we will try to do that each and every week.
Q: Are you satisfied with how that has gone, with the yardage that you have been able to pick up??
A: We are not satisfied with very much at this stage. Especially after you get it handed to you like we did on Sunday night. We want to get back on track where we felt like we were making progress each and every week, but in greater increments. When Joe is on the field we want to get more juice out of it, and we will keep putting him in position where he can do that.
Q: How much do you have to temper Christian? His running is good and he can take off, but you don’t want to get him hurt.
A: He has to make good judgments late in the game. If you saw any of his film at Florida State he was a fearless runner, which is an attribute. But at this level with the guys playing defense you have to be smart or you won’t stay up right. You won’t stay in the League very long health-wise. He has that sixth sense, but we also have to have him exude good judgment late in the down when guys are bearing down on him.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011
Vikings Defensive Coordinator Fred Pagac
Good morning guys. Went out yesterday in that Indian Summer we had and we had a practice, a good practice. Guys were running around. Getting ready for the Green Bay Packers this week. Obviously it looks a little sunnier out there today. We’ll have some fun out there today. Questions?
Q: What are your expectations with Jamarca Sanford and his concussion?
A: On that one I don’t have an answer for you. That’s going to be, depending upon the medical staff, we’ll know that probably tomorrow. We’ll probably know more about that tomorrow and go from there. In fact, we haven’t talked to anybody yet today about that so that’s up in the air right now.
Q: Is Tyrell Johnson up then after Sanford?
A: Tyrell will be the next guy in, yes.
Q: How do you think he has done in the limited time he’s had?
A: Obviously we want every one of our players to keep improving as we do him and if he is the starter this week, we’re going to expect him to play at a high level and go from there.
Q: How much do you even get to use your base defense against the Packers when they spread a defense out?
A: Their lead package is a three-wideout, sometimes four-wideout set. Again, it depends on what they have on the field, what their game plan is as far as what we’re playing.
Q: What’s the hardest part in trying to defend all of the weapons they have offensively?
A: They’re pretty good. They’re World Champions. Aaron Rodgers is playing at a very high level as well as all of their skill players. We’re going to have to get after them up front and play well in the back end of it. I’m going to go right back to camp when we talked about we’re going to need 11 players playing a great game and playing with emotion, playing with detail, and having some fun.
Q: What’s your level of concern with Cedric Griffin and where he’s at?
A: Cedric would tell you he wants to improve, get more consistent and whether that’s a physical situation because of the knee or not, I don’t know that but he’s a guy, and again, he’s not the only guy, there are 11 guys on the field at one time. They’re going to have to bring their game up.
Q: Is Aaron Rodgers about as tough as it gets with the quick release he has?
A: He’s on fire right now. He’s having a heck of a year. He’s matured into a great football player and we’re going to have to put our best effort against him and try to control what he does and get after him a little bit.
Q: Do you guys track how quickly a quarterback gets rid of the ball?
A: He’s pretty quick. Whether you’re tracking it or not, you could look at it and see it in your eye. He’s quick with the release.
Q: Is he one of the best in the league when you do try and blitz him?
A: He gets the ball off. He has great vision. He knows defenses. He understands pressure situations. He understands his hot reads, his sight reads, things of that nature. He’s playing well right now. He’s a good football player.
Q: Many players were disappointed at how the defense defended the run. What happened against Chicago?
A: They came out in the first half and took us to the woodshed and none of us were happy, coaches, players. It was a situation where they executed and we didn’t and they got some yardage on us running the ball and that’s not normal for us. That’s something that we have to improve on.
Q: Were they more physical or were you playing out of your gaps?
A: I’m just going to leave it as we got our butts kicked and came out in the second half and played much better as far as that’s concerned.
Q: Is Mistral Raymond a guy you would look to have active potentially and how is his progress?
A: He could be. I don’t know right yet. That could be a decision made later on in the week but yes, he’s doing very well.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011
Vikings Special Teams Coordinator Mike Priefer
Q: Ryan missed a couple of kicks the last couple of games, do you analyze that with him and why that happened?
A: Yeah, I think you analyze that but you don’t overanalyze it. Being Ryan Longwell and having the career and success that he’s had in the NFL, you don’t panic, you just try to figure out what you think might have gone wrong and you, kind of, go from there. We’ve addressed it, I’m not worried about it. He came out here yesterday and had a great session indoors. We come inside because obviously we’re playing in the Dome. He kicked the ball vry, very well, so I’m not concerned at all.
Q: What’s your assessment on his misses?
A: It’s any number of things. Basically, I think what it comes down to is his rhythm wasn’t where he wants it to be. That’s what we worked on yesterday and will continue to work on today.
Q: The snap and hold was fine?
A: Yes, on Sunday the snap and hold were fine.
Q: How do you get Sherels to not fair catch the ball at the 5 yard line again?
A: That’s a good question and I figured I was going to get that question. Marcus is a work in progress. We’ve talked a lot about him in the last few weeks and how much I enjoy coaching him. What he does is, he has a rule, and he drifted a little bit past that rule, and to be honest with you, they may have downed it inside the 5 anyway. I’m not saying that would have happened, it was cold, it was windy and the ball may have bounced in the endzone too. But yeah, he needs to let that ball bounce. That’s twice this year, we’ve worked on it, we’ve addressed it, we worked hard on it yesterday. You guys see me out there before practice, after practice, we’re constantly talking about the different situations. Somebody made a good point to me yesterday, and this is not an excuse by any stretch of the imagination. When you don’t have all those OTA’s and spring work with a young returner, there are a lot of situations that you don’t cover enough. We’ve covered that situation, obviously it’s happened in the game, but with a young guy like that you need to cover it over and over and over again. Because in the heat of the battle, in the heat of the game, he’s going to make those decisions that don’t always work out perfectly. You know, he caught the ball, it was windy, at least he wasn’t scared to catch it like some returners would be. But that has been addressed and will continue to get better.
Q: It’s easy to say keep your heels on the 7 yard line, but I imagine with those winds, you take two steps and lose your field position?
A: You take two steps forward and two steps back and lose where you are, absolutely. And that’s not an excuse; he’ll get better at that
Q: What’s the rule, the 7, the 8?
A: Toes at the 8 yard line. Toes so you know where you are. Some people say heels at the 10, but then you’re kind of looking back, so I try to keep it simple. If it’s simple for me it should be simple for them.
Q: Did Ryan put the ball where he needed to on Devin Hester’s return?
A: Well the hang-time wasn’t terrible. We wanted, obviously, more distance on that because we were kicking with the wind and their kicker got some pretty good distance in the wind. They were swirling a little bit; they weren’t changing a whole lot. I’m kicking myself for that one. It obviously starts with me and I was very, I don’t know if you’d say ambitious, but I believe in our guys and I really think we have a good kickoff cover team. We challenged them and we lost that challenge, unfortunately. I’ll learn from that and move on.
Q: So Everson gets doubled there, it looks like Devin keeps Hester inside, is it Larry’s play to make in the hole there?
A: You know, I’d like to squeeze that a little bit more, I think it was Christian on that side that actually blows right through the double-team. That was our adjustment, put the two big guys at the 3’s because that’s what they do, they don’t change their scheme, they run the same stuff. Christian did a great job against the double-team, we didn’t squeeze it enough with the 1 and the 2, we call it “setting the edge.” We need to do a better job with that. I think that if we gave Larry a little bit more room, he would have made that play.
Q: With Kluwe’s punt, did the wind catch that?
A: I think the wind caught it. I think the pressure of kicking to Hester caught it. Sometimes, when you’re an indoor team, and obviously, as an indoor team, this is only my 7th game coming up, you get used to not punting in winds. When you get out there and it’s swirling, you kind of get caught up. Even a veteran guy can get caught up in the “oh man this is going to be a rough night.” I think we might have gotten caught up in that a little bit. We need to take that experience and go forward. I think we have four more games outdoors, including Green Bay on Monday night, where we have to say, “who cares.” We need to do what we do best. We need to use the wind to our advantage, like they did. I mean, he had two good punts, he shanked one too, Podlesh, he had a 26-yarder. So it’s not easy, it’s not an easy thing to do. Chris has said before, you can’t press the buttons on a video controller and make the punt go where you want it to go. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. We worked on it, we had some winds last week in practice, which helped us. It’s one of those things, you need to not worry about it and try to use it to your advantage.
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