Vikings Players Give Their Reasons for Minnesota’s Latest Loss
Josh Frey
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Sunday’s loss at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams was just the latest frustrating performance of the 2021 season for the Minnesota Vikings. Following the game, multiple players gave their own takes as to why the Vikings lost in postgame press conferences. Here are just a few of the workshopped opinions given by the players of the purple and gold.
Lack of Aggressiveness
Over his two years in the NFL, Justin Jefferson has quickly emerged as one of the best wide receivers in the entire NFL. Additionally, he is putting up this production in Minnesota solely because the Vikings traded Stefon Diggs to Buffalo in exchange for a first-round pick, and the trade largely took place because of Diggs unhappiness in Minnesota.
With that in mind, when Jefferson speaks up, people in the Vikings organization should probably listen. In his post-game presser, the star said that he thought Minnesota was too conservative on offense, especially down in the red zone. The Vikings scored touchdowns on just one of their four red zone drives. The other three ended in field goals and an interception.
Christmas Hangovers?
A common theme throughout these postgame pressers was that there simply wasn’t a lot of energy going into this game. It seemed clear when the Vikings got off to such a sluggish start that things were off, and once again, it was Justin Jefferson that confirmed this in his interview. He said that even pregame in the locker room, there wasn’t a ton of energy amongst the Vikings. He added that he tried to hype some of his teammates up, but it apparently didn’t work.
It certainly is strange that a team fighting for its playoff life wouldn’t come out with enough fire. It’s even more strange when it’s against a team like the Los Angeles Rams; a matchup that no one should be going into with low energy.
Another Viking found low energy as the culprit, but not amongst the Vikings players. Instead, Anthony Barr, who had a pair of INTs in this game, thought the fans went into this game without any fire. His accusation for the low energy? Maybe a little too much Christmas evening fun.
VikingsTerritory editor, Dustin Baker, confirmed this notion as being true after attending the game. Again, quite strange for a must-win game against a Super Bowl contender.
Points off Turnovers
The Minnesota Vikings did a terrific job of putting pressure on Matthew Stafford this week, forcing him into a multitude of short passes as well as three interceptions. On the surface, if you look at the passing stats for the Rams, you’d think Minnesota comfortably won this game. However, Kirk Cousins pointed to a lack of execution following these turnovers.
Like the others, he’s certainly not wrong, either. The Vikings managed just one touchdown off the Rams three turnovers, even though two of them resulted in Minnesota starting drives inside the Rams 15-yard line. Other than this, Cousins seemed just generally frustrated with how the things ended up. On the bright side though, he said his fractured rib didn’t bug him during the game.
The Vikings will head to Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers next Sunday night.