Vikings Head Coach Brad Childress
I don’t have a lot to report to you, aside from the fact that the team has elected captains. They elected them Friday. E.J. Henderson is our defensive captain, Steve Hutchinson is our offensive captain and Ryan Longwell is our special teams captain. Those guys will wear Cs on their jerseys throughout the year. We’ll also honor an offensive, defensive and special teams player of the week that will also go out for the coin toss. For starters, those three guys, and obviously it’s an honor to be elected by your peers in that captain’s role. Other than that, we’re excited to get on to an actual game week. I know the rest of the NFL will be one day in. We’re starting, in earnest, our preparations today.
Q: What made you decide to vote for captains after you made your final cuts?
A: I thought we were ready for it, and they were ready for it. They thought about it and we waited until we got our team down to the right number. There’s no sense in having people vote that weren’t going to be a part of the football team. They voted and picked them. I won’t characterize the vote in any way, other than to say that those guys stood out, and then we announced it Friday night.
Q: Is Steve Hutchinson a leader in the locker room?
A: I don’t think he’ll ever be Dale Carnegie or anything like that. Yeah, in his own way. A lot of it is by example. There’s the E.F. Hutton way, too, where people lean in and listen when you talk. They don’t need to talk all of the time, but obviously he’s a Pro Bowler. It speaks of his ability, but it also speaks of his work ethic and (being) a team player, and that type of thing.
Q: What is the benefit of having the captains wear the “C” on their jerseys?
A: I think it identifies them as, obviously, good players, good leaders and good citizens as well. I know hockey has done it for a long while. I know that the Wild do it; I haven’t talked to Doug Risebrough about it, whether they do it on a monthly basis or so. It’s really an earned honor. It’s not a right that you have for the whole year. I know everybody does it differently, but those guys will be our guys for the year. It has advantages; even though we have a leadership committee, (the players) are identified and people can readily speak to them or they can speak to people. It goes both ways.
Q: How far has E.J. Henderson come in gaining the respect of his teammates?
A: The guy that stands in front of the defense in that huddle and obviously disseminates information is an important guy. Obviously his play speaks for itself. I don’t think there was anybody on this football team that didn’t feel like he had a Pro Bowl caliber year last year. He’s a million-mile-an-hour guy. He trains hard in the offseason. He’s come a long way. He’s gone through a position switch, which was a serious bone of contention at the beginning of my tenure here, at the linebacker position. He’s accepted the challenge. I don’t know if he was as successful early in his career. He’s gone through a couple of changes, both by position and system. I think he’s continued to thrive.
Q: Would you put E.J. and Steve Hutchinson in the same category as far as being quiet leaders?
A: Yeah, I would think that you’d probably do that. Obviously he’s not mute or anything like that, even though we are using a communicator that goes to him now. We don’t signal to the huddle from him. He has to make calls at the line of scrimmage and in the huddle, etcetera.
Q: Is Artis Hicks’ matchup the key in the game against the Packers?
A: I think that’s a solid defensive line overall, when you’re talking about the position flexibility that a Cullen Jenkins has. I don’t know if Kabeer (Gbaja-Biamila) is playing or not, but Jenkins can rush inside or outside. Then Aaron Kampman is a Pro Bowl athlete. If I’m not mistaken it was 12 sacks last year. He was relentless. He has a great combination of power and speed and moves. He’s very smart. He’s hard to run around. He’s hard to run at. He’s a good, good football player so that is as key of a matchup as there is. I’m not going to say that the guys who line up over the guards aren’t key matchups either. Those guys are big suckers and good players, too.
Q: Does that matchup make you want to use two tight ends more often?
A: I just envision doing a lot of different things to everybody along the front. That’s just the game plan. I’m sure there will be a tight end over there sometimes, and I’m sure there will be a tight end on the other side at times, maybe on both sides sometimes; maybe none at times. It’s a game-plan type of thing.
Q: How would you evaluate the run game coming out of the preseason?
A: Stock-wise, you don’t look at statistics. You glance at them, but I don’t know that we say, “This is the No. 1 rushing team in the NFL during the preseason,” because there’s such a variety of running backs and offensive linemen playing there. We just look at things more fundamentally. I think that usually those things grow as the season goes on. You have a training camp where you kind of set those things down, then when the speed picks up and you’re playing 11-on-11 football, you find out some different things. I wouldn’t characterize it one way or the other, superior or awful.
Q: How confident are you in Tarvaris Jackson’s pain threshold?
A: I think those guys play with pain more often than we give them credit for since probably the first day of the season when they get knocked around and they have bangs and bruises, and things like that. When you’re talking about things like ligaments and muscles and that, everybody’s different. I don’t question his toughness, not at all. He is a tough guy.
Q: How would you prioritize each of your backup linebackers?
A: Fred (Pagac) cross-trains all of those guys. David (Herron) actually started over where Vinny (Ciurciu) was, then Vinny’s been inside and played the Mike linebacker at the start of training camp. Erin Henderson played all three and we kind of settled it down a little bit as we went through. We obviously feel differently about those guys at different positions, which I won’t share with you, but Vinny has easily the most experience in there.
Q: Is Aaron Rodgers a quarterback that can be easily rattled?
A: I don’t know, considering all that’s gone on in the offseason. Can you rattle him? I don’t know if those two go together. That remains to be seen. There’s not a huge book on him. I’m sure he’ll define how he plays with this season, and then you’ll have a little bit more of an idea.
Q: Is it more important to get pressure on a young quarterback?
A: It’s always important to get after the quarterback. You just don’t want to let those guys be real comfortable back there. You have to mix it up between rushing (the quarterback) and covering. You have to try and keep them guessing, because you don’t ever want somebody to zero in on what they think they’re attacking.
Q: Who will back up Artis Hicks? Are you still sorting that out?
A: We’re sorting through it. Thanks for answering that for me.
Q: Do you see this as a pivotal year for you and your coaching career?
A: I look at every year as a pivotal year. There’s not a year since I started coaching back at the University of Illinois as a graduate assistant that I didn’t think that I had to do my best job to hang on to my job. Every single year, that’s just the nature of coaching. That’s why I always say, “Nobody puts any more pressure on me than me.”
Q: Is this team becoming what you had envisioned it to become?
A: Yeah. I’d say it’s getting there. I don’t think that success is ever final. You’re never finished. You’re always looking to upgrade. You’re always looking to teach better, to get their attention better, enhance performance. You’re always looking to try and reshape it. I don’t think you can ever sit on hold because that’s just not where we are right now.
Q: Has Ryan Cook made strides in his development?
A: I think he’s made strides. There were times, different battles through training camp when Ray (Edwards) came back and Jayme (Mitchell) was in there, but that’s kind of the ebbs and flows. You just want to create a standard of performance that you can come to expect all of the time. I think he’s getting there. Everybody fights that battle every day. You just want to be consistent in what you’re putting out there.
Q: Where do you want to see Artis Hicks improve the most?
A: I don’t think there’s any one. Run blocking, combination blocking or pass blocking, I wouldn’t put in on any one area. You just want that experience to grow and to learn from the mistakes that he made, whether they are mental mistakes or technique flaws.
Q: Tarvaris Jackson sputtered in his last few primetime performances. Is the spotlight a problem for him?
A: I don’t want to overanalyze it. It’s a team game, and everybody has to play around the quarterback. That certainly doesn’t excuse (mistakes). You say he “sputtered.” I do know this, the guys like to play in primetime. They like to play in front of their peers. You don’t need to do anything out of body. You still have a team and a system that you play to.
Q: The last trip to Green Bay wasn’t a good one. Does that serve as motivation for this time?
A: Season openers seem to have a life of their own because everyone makes a lot of changes in the offseason. This is a division rivalry that’s been longstanding. I don’t know that you have to add a lot more to it.
Q: Has your perception of this rivalry changed since you have become head coach?
A: I think Jerry (Burns) put it in great perspective for us, as only Jerry can. When you have guys from all ends of the country, whether it’s the southwest, the southeast or the west coast, you don’t understand NFC North football. Jerry, having been involved in 56 of those games, can really assess as a historian and as a coach what that rivalry is all about. I have a great idea from him what that rivalry is all about.
Q: Did the Brett Favre allegations this offseason hamper the credibility of you and your team?
A: Integrity is big with me. It is what it is and it was ruled on the way it was ruled on, so I’m going to just let that stand.
Vikings Quarterback Tarvaris Jackson
Q: Do you feel prepared for this week’s game?
A: Oh yeah, definitely. I had a long offseason to prepare. I feel like I prepared well. I trained pretty hard. I did a lot of things to try and get better. I’ve been through a pretty good training camp. I’m very familiar with all of my guys. Pretty much everybody’s been here, so I feel ready.
Q: Is there a difference going into your second year as a starter?
A: It’s a big difference. I feel a lot more comfortable. Like I said, I’ve been through this before; I’m going into my third year. I know what to expect out of my teammates, my coaches, out of you all, everybody. So I am very confident. It’s to the point now that I pretty much know what is going to happen just by going out there and preparing well.
Q: Do you use your experience in previous prime time games to prepare you for this one?
A: In the game experience, yeah, I use it, whether it’s primetime or not even on TV or if we’re playing in here. Every play you get you just try to use it to your advantage, try to store it in your memory bank. I can go back a lot of times to different things I’ve seen and kind of compare it to another time I kind of saw that look and what happened. I’ll watch us go into a situation then go into my memory bank to try and see what I should do in that situation.
Q: Do you feel like you will overcompensate for your knee injury when you get on the field?
A: I’m not going to overcompensate for it. It’s to the point where I’m more and more comfortable and just know that it’s okay to where I’m not going out there playing like I’m hurt. I came out here last Tuesday and had a pretty good practice on it. (It was) the first time doing a lot of things on it, running and stuff like that; going full speed on it. So it felt pretty good.
Q: Will it be a challenge to forget about your injury when you’re playing?
A: No, once the game starts I think it will be the last thing on my mind.
Q: Are you concerned about being rusty considering you haven’t played in a game for a few weeks?
A: Yeah, I thought about that. You can say the only thing I really missed was the Pittsburgh game because starters didn’t play in the Dallas game. So I thought about it; I would have loved to get the Steelers game in but it didn’t play out that way. So I’ll just go of off what I know, what my past experiences with injuries and my past experience playing against the Packers are. I’ll just try to get a feel for it out here. We try to make it like a game experience as much as possible out here as far as the speed goes. It will be a little bit different but hopefully I’ll be fine.
Q: What do you think you have improved on most in the last year?
A: A lot of things; I can’t just say one thing really. The game really slowed down for me a lot. I got a lot more comfortable recognizing things, seeing things before they happen. (I’m more comfortable with) the offense, as far as knowing where guys are going to be more. I got on the same page with my guys a lot better, knowing what the offensive line is going to do, who is blocking who. Knowing all that stuff kind of makes you more comfortable with what’s going on as a whole. So I kind of got a full grasp of what’s going on for what I am doing.
Q: You have said that you are now looking to pass first, scramble second. When did that change for you?
A: (It was a) gradual process to get in that mode. You want to be a passer first. I have the benefit (that I can) run, but that should open up lanes for us, passing lanes for our receivers. When I run I still try to make sure I’m still looking downfield, making sure guys aren’t open, then I’ll turn to the run. But I had to kind of get out of that mode where when I took off running it’s pretty much me running instead of looking for guys open.
Q: The team elected captains today. How do you feel about their leadership as individuals?
A: We could have picked a lot of guys but those are the guys that pretty much stick out. When you think about offensive leaders, you think about (Steve Hutchison) Hutch and (Matt) Birk. When you think about defense, you got a couple guys, but E.J. is the middle linebacker. He’s the guy that calls the plays. He’s not the vocal guy but he’s the leader of the defense. So it was kind of like a no-brainer. We could have picked a couple guys but when it really came down to it, it was kind of like a no-brainer with those guys. They are great at it. They come to work every day, those guys. They do the right things all the time. So those are the guys that you want to be your captains.
Q: Are you wearing a knee brace in Monday’s game?
A: I don’t know yet.
Q: Is it different preparing for Green Bay without Brett Favre there?
A: No, it’s no different. I (wasn’t) going against Brett. I’m playing offense. He’s on offense. So I wasn’t really worried about exactly what was going on that side of the football as far as he goes. I was worried about what those guys are doing on defense. So I’m taking the same approach. He’s not with the Packers now, so that’s all I can say about that situation now.
Q: Do you remember what was going through your mind the last time you were at Lambeau Field?
A: Yeah, it was a bad situation. We thought we were ready to play but we didn’t come out and play as well as we thought (we should have). Like Coach (Childress) mentioned earlier this week, the last two times we played in Lambeau we haven’t scored a point on offense. So we want to get out of that mode. We want to score some points, of course, this weekend and move the ball a little bit better. So last time it kind of put us on a winning streak last time we played in Green Bay, but we don’t want to start another winning streak like that.
Q: Do you think everything with the Favre situation this offseason fueled the rivalry between the Packers and Vikings?
A: Probably so. A lot of things went on this summer like you said - the whole situation with Brett, the tampering deal. It’s really just going to be a rivalry anyways because it’s Green Bay against the Vikings, but also it’s our first game of the season so that’s big in itself. And (it’s a) Monday Night Football game, a new beginning for us. So we are just looking forward to it.
Q: Do you want to wear the knee brace when you play?
A: I don’t want to wear it, but if I have to I will. It’s not to the point where I’m trying to go out here in practice and not wear it; it’s the point where if I feel comfortable not wearing it I won’t wear it. It’s not me trying to politic not to wear it or them trying to get me to wear it; it’s just the point of me feeling comfortable.