Following their 23-17 victory over the New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell spoke to the media.
“Absolutely a gritty win by our team,” said the Vikings Head Coach. “So many moments in that game, so many things we talked about going into this football game that materialized. Especially got to give it up for our defence, Flo [Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores] and those guys. We needed them today. It was not good enough to our standard on offense, and moments like this are where we lean into a lot of things that our organization is built off of. Adversity, dealing with adversity together, no flinch, all three sides figuring out a way to come together and win a football game.
“What I told our team is there’s going to be days like this, and when there’s days like this, good football teams find a way to pick each other up against a future Hall of Fame quarterback [Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers] in tough circumstances.
“Kind of a sloppy day all the way around with a little spitting rain and all those things. A thousand excuses out there. Our team didn’t look for any of them. We kept playing, Will Reichard was phenomenal for us. When we needed three, he got it. And like I said, our defence, just lights out from the standpoint of picking up our team when we needed them.”
Commenting on his side’s London trip, O’Connell stated:
“It’s been a phenomenal trip. Want to thank everybody that took care of us at our hotel, the NFL, putting on a great trip for us, and obviously all the folks with the Vikings that plan this thing year-round. There’s a lot of people that their names can’t be mentioned right now, but I wanted to personally thank all of them for helping make this trip go.
“We’ll go into our bye, get healthy at a couple spots and hopefully come out with the momentum that a 5-0 team should. Tons of challenges out in front of this and I can’t wait to attack them with my guys.
“Just injury updates on a couple guys. Aaron Jones did have a right hip and not return. He’ll be evaluated. I’ll keep you guys posted from the standpoint of what that looks like, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that hopefully will be short-term. And then Akayleb Evans did have a left hip flexor and did not return.”
Minnesota Vikings Linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel told the assembled media:
“It’s a great feeling, obviously, when you can make a play like that, it can change the game. It’s exciting, and I’m just glad I caught the ball and the rest is history. Once I got out of that first tackle, I started running, I saw Harrison Smith had a huge block, and if he doesn’t make that block, I don’t think I score. It’s a shout out to him and shout out to all the guys behind, just block the skill players so they couldn’t catch me.”
Minnesota Vikings Quarterback Sam Darnold, whose side now goes 5-0 for the season, said of this afternoon’s game:
“I think obviously a win is a win. I think our defence, our special teams played out of their minds today, and I think as an offense, I think we’ve just got to find a way to continue to play consistent football. The pre-snap penalties, the communication just has to continue to get better, but as a whole, I feel like we were able to make plays when we needed to, but we’ve just got to continue to get better that way.
“I think for us, we have a lot of good things clicking right now as a team, but it’s early. We know it’s a long season, and we just — again, like I said, kind of in the beginning, we’ve just got to continue to take it one step at a time, and if you get caught up in what people are saying about you and you’re this or you’re that. We weren’t listening to anything that people were saying before the season, so why would we start now. I think for us, it’s kind of have that mindset.”
