VIKINGS HEAD COACH LESLIE FRAZIER
Opening statement: "I think it's important to thank the Lions' organization. They were great hosts in getting everything prepared for us to play in such short notice. The league did a great job, along with many members of our Vikings organization as well, to put us in a position where we could play with such short notice.
"Tough game tonight for our football team. We just didn't make enough plays, and hats off to the New York Giants. They showed why they're one of the better teams in our league. They did a great job all the way around. Just a tough night, but something we've got to learn from as a team and try to do the things that are necessary to not allow what happened tonight to happen again. Hats off to the Giants. They did a great job in achieving what they needed to achieve."
On at what point he knew Vikings QB Brett Favre couldn't play tonight: "I talked to him before the game; we were in the locker room. We had talked a lot last night and we revisited it before the game and just wanted to see if things had improved. He was having trouble with numbness down through his shoulder and then to his hands, and just hoping that the numbness would go away, so that he would be able to feel the ball and grip it and have the touch that he needed, but it still wasn't the case when we talked before the game. So, it wasn't a hard decision not to put him out there, knowing he wasn't healthy enough to do what he had to do as a quarterback. Hopefully, things will get better and we can get him back, but we'll just have to wait and see."
On if putting Favre on Injured Reserve is an option: "I'd like to try to get him back if we can, but who knows. That may be a possibility. I'm hoping not, I'm hoping we can get him back."
On if he is disappointed with the play of QB Tavaris Jackson: "We all would've liked for him to play better. There were some opportunities out there, especially early. He started off pretty good and when people are giving you so many eight-man fronts and so much pressure you have to be able to make plays at the quarterback position with your wide receivers and we just couldn't get that done. Our defense was keeping us in the game. If they didn't do the things they did, it could've gotten a lot uglier than it did. You have to be able to make plays at that position when people are stuffing the run, and trying to stuff the run as much as they were."
On giving up two 100-yard rushers: "We had some missed tackles, and we had some guys get out of their gaps, so they had two real long runs by both backs. It's very uncharacteristic of us. It's something we'll have to go back and get fixed, but credit to their backs and credit to their offensive line, they did a great job."
On the crowd at Ford Field: "Early on, I thought the energy was great. I really felt like it was a partisan crowd towards us and we were trying to feed off of that energy and we didn't capitalize. There were a couple of turnovers early that we needed to capitalize with seven points rather than three points. I think we got three out of one and zero out of another, and that would've kept the crowd in the game, but they were great. To have that many fans in such short notice to show up, I thought the fans were great. They did a great job for us."
VIKINGS QB BRETT FAVRE
On at what point he knew playing wasn't an option: "It was day-to-day, but it came down to the day. I really was not able to do anything this week. That's not the first time in my career that that's happened, but this really based on numbness. During the game, same thing, just tingling and really nothing to shoot up, not to mention that's kind of tricky. I've played through a lot of stuff but I think this is something different that I have to be more cautious of."
On what it was like, emotionally, to watch the game go on without him: "Relief, in one sense that there wasn't a whole lot of pressure on me today. It was different. It's been a long time. I'd much rather be playing, but… and that's just my nature. I don't want to say it was time… it's probably been long overdue. There's probably been a lot of times that the streak should have ended. It wasn't really a flood of emotions. I just couldn't play. I didn't feel like I could function good enough. You never know if you're going to play a whole game but I didn't think I could function good enough to help us win, so I just made that call."
On why it was a relief: "Now that it's over and done with. Whether it ended today, several weeks, in the last season – it's been a great run. I'm very proud of it. There's nothing left to be done, not that there was anything to prove anyway, but I think it's a very difficult thing to do. I realize that more so now because it seems like I've been hurt a lot worse. I can't believe that something like this hasn't happened before. It's pretty amazing that God has blessed me, no doubt, with the ability to play at a high level and endure physically. I may pay for it a little bit later, but I wouldn't trade it for anything."
On if he feels like he's gotten enough out of his streak and career: "Absolutely. I could have said that five years ago (but) I love to compete. I don't like to lose. I would hope that every guy I've ever played with would feel the same way. But for me, I knew coming into the season there was nothing left to prove. I knew the chances of us duplicating what we did last year would be very hard. I enjoy the guys, working with them. Again, I don't like losing. I don't like getting injured. But that is part of it. I've had several people in passing say, 'I'd hate for the streak to end like this.' End like what? It's been a great run. I will not hang my head one bit because it ended today. I think about as a kid, goals, dreams, I've far exceeded all those that I had. I never dreamed of playing three-hundred-plus straight games. I just dreamed of playing in the NFL. So it's been pretty amazing."
On if he will play again, given the injury and the team's record: "I won't play again if I can't feel my hand. So, I think we're going to try to do another exam tomorrow. This actually started back at the Washington game is when I first felt it, on the hit in the first or second drive. At times it feels ok. I don't want to say it's not so much the pain… there's a little pain but that's subsided some, but it's this tingling. So I think it would be foolish to even consider playing if you don't have total feeling in five fingers."
On if his shoulder sprain is causing the numbness: "I think it added to it. I think that hit last week was, when the smoke had cleared, the first thing I noticed when I was hit last week and came off the field was that I didn't feel anything, in my shoulder and my arm. That's not uncommon with a pinched nerve, but I had felt the same thing the previous week. I think it's more or less a freak thing that happened two weeks in a row. So there's probably some trauma to that nerve. Again, that hit last week just kind of aggravated it again."
On if he's concerned about nerve damage and a purple hand: "I think it will be alright, I do. But I think it's probably a little too late to be thinking about how I'm going to feel a year from now, ten years from now. I chose to play. I know its part of it. I remember when I first got to Green Bay, seeing a lot of the other guys who had played, great players and you see the price that you pay. Little did I know I'd play 20 years. Am I concerned? That's a big reason why I didn't play today. Not to mention the ball, may drop a snap, the ball may slip out of my hand. So I think I'll be ok, but I do have to be cautious about it. I'm sure if I got hit like that again, it wouldn't help it."
On if he will stay with the team if he finds out the problem will persist: "That's questions I haven't thought about, to be quite honest with you. I've always assumed I'd play every game. Today was no exception. I enjoy playing but I haven't even thought about that to be quite honest with you. I don't want to say I'm shocked by today. I guess in some sort of way I just expected it for some time, probably like all of us. 'He's played another game, he's played another game.' But I have no idea. It's unfortunate we're out of this playoff race, but I'm just going to see how I feel this week and go from there."
On if this season is one of the toughest he's had to go through: "Yeah, it is. But it's like I tell these guys, 'You play long enough and you'll see and do just about everything.' It sure makes, when you think back, I'll think more about last season than I will this season. But you take the good with the bad. That's part of it. Believe me, I knew that coming into this season; I knew it going into last season, there's no guarantees, but at least I won't look back and say, 'I wonder if I had played, could we have done this or done that.' We know now."
VIKNGS RB ADRIAN PETERSON
On what happened in the game: "The Giants just played better than us tonight. Offensively, we really hurt ourselves and you can't win a ballgame playing the way we did."
On Vikings QB Brett Favre not playing: "Obviously, he couldn't go. So, we just had to go with T.J. I felt he did a good job, but offensively we really just couldn't get into a rhythm."
On the unorthodox week for the Vikings: "It was hectic. We're all professionals. We still have to come ready to play. Defense, I have to say did a great job. We did some good things offensively, but we just didn't play well enough. We just have to give credit to the Giants, offensively and defensively, they were just the better team tonight."
On how frustrating the season has been: "It's been frustrating. It's been like a roller coaster. (We) still had an opportunity to control our own destiny, but you know we have three games left, so we're just going to continue to fight."
VIKINGS TE VISANTHE SCHIANCOE
On the offense's performance tonight: "Yeah, three points – that says everything about our performance on offense."
On if he can attribute it to anything: "I don't know what I would contribute it to… This hurts. We put a lot of effort in all week, and there Giants were just a better team today. Just everything from every facet of a team's standpoint they played better. They put better stuff on the field, period."
On having some momentum and losing it: "We had some momentum, but we just couldn't do anything. We couldn't score, we couldn't score. Defense played pretty well, special teams played pretty well; we just have to step up on our side. That's all that there is to it. It's bad; it's disappointing, very disappointing. It's bad football, man."
On how they got to this point, compared to last season: "You have to talk to coach about all that, I can't comment on that type of stuff. I can't comment on the specifics, I'm not going to comment on the specifics on that."
On how frustrating this is: "Oh yeah, it's frustrating. Just look at my face right now, man. I'm disgusted a little bit – not a little bit, a lot. I'm disgusted a lot."
VIKINGS DE JARED ALLEN
On the Giants having two 100-yard rushers tonight: "It's embarrassing, that's all I can say."
On Vikings QB Brett Favre's consecutive games streak being snapped: "I don't care about the streak. I care more about those guys in the locker room and what we just put on tape out there. Hats off to the Giants, they came in and they kicked our butts tonight."
On if he felt the team was flat: "There's no excuse. How can you excuse it? It's our job to go play football, no matter where it's at. Adversity set in and they responded to it better than us. I thought we were playing well in the first quarter, a couple of turnovers and things were going our way, and then all of a sudden… Big plays obviously killed us tonight."
On playing good football the last two games and then not playing well tonight: "It's embarrassing. Every Sunday, that's what people remember, what you did last Sunday. It's not from lack of preparation, it's not from lack of – I don't know what it is. We just gotta get better. That starts with me, it starts with everybody. Fundamentally, we weren't sound today."
