<span>              <span style="">New Orleans Saints vs. Minnesota Vikings Postgame Quotes</span>                

            <span style="">New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton</span>                   

Opening Statement…

"A couple of things. I just finished talking to the players about this, but there were some positives tonight, but they get overshadowed with the amount of mistakes we made. We turned the ball over too much, too many penalties again, and regardless of how we defend the running back or our yardage on offense or two great punt returns by Reggie Bush, all of that gets overshadowed by those mistakes we made. We really end up beating ourselves. I credit Minnesota; they did a good job of fighting back and hanging in there. It became a real close game late and in the end they ended up winning the game. The disappointing thing is our turnovers, our penalties, and that starts with us, that starts with me, I have to do a better job, our coaching staff is the same way. That is the frustrating thing about this game tonight, there are a number of things that you can set out to do and yet if you fumble the ball and you have the drops and you have all the penalties, those will do you in, they do it time and time again. We talked about it last week. Any questions?"

Q: Can you talk about, defensively; you have a 7-point lead in the fourth quarter and couldn't get a stop?

A: "There were a couple of big plays really. I thought the momentum shifted and we came up with some big plays, but on the third down play we came with an all out blitz, they got it up in the air and the receiver made a great play for a touchdown. Late in the game, third down, third and five, there was a pass interference call and that was a big play that changed the field position. There were a number of specifics, but I thought by-and-large we battled them pretty well on defense. We give up a field goal block for a touchdown, too many penalties, like I said the turnovers that put our guys on the short field too often offensively. That was disappointing."

Q: What effect do you think Reggie's three great punt returns (2 for TDs) had on the momentum of the game?

A: "The momentum shifted with the first one and then clearly with the second one. Those were great efforts by the guys blocking for him and certainly by him with the returns. It really swung the advantage to us and we just weren't able to keep it and it was disappointing. I thought we were sluggish in that fourth quarter and stalled offensively. We had trouble with any consistency rushing the football and that was frustrating. Like I said, we had a number of drops and a number of miscues. We were sloppy."

Q: Can you talk about the only offensive TD coming in the first quarter?

A: "When you look at the fumbles and the turnovers, that does it right there. Too many turnovers, too many penalties and its hard to overcome first and fifteen and it seemed like I was looking down at the third and long box a lot. Our plan going in was to throw it more than run it, but that being said, just too many mistakes to sustain offensively. In that first drive I don't think there were any penalties, I don't think there were any drops, but after that it became more difficult."

Q: Can you talk about the mistakes and miscues…it seemed like you weren't having problems getting positive yardage when you didn't turn the ball over?

A: "When you get 10, 11 or 12 possessions in a game, and if you have the turnovers that we had today, the dropped passes that we had today, and the penalties that we had today, your chances of doing something with each one of those possessions decreases dramatically statistically. Just look at it. If you look at the off-sides penalties, the procedure penalties or the holding penalties on third an one negating a big run, those all add up and they cost you. You can't get them back. You only get so many possessions. What can you do about them? You start looking at the repeat offenders and make the emphasis on our campus and make sure we understand what is going on. There are some guys that it keeps happening to and its not going to happen much longer to those same guys."

Q: Can you talk about Martin Gramatica's best of times/worst of times kind of night; 52-yard field goal, but missed the chance to tie it?

A: "It is a lot like a lot of the rest of the play tonight. There are some inconsistencies obviously. We were giving up some internal pressure, I think from their rush and our left side, they had to block early. The big one he had in the fourth quarter put us ahead and then later we just go wide left."

Vikings Head Coach Brad Childress

Opening statement: "This a very, very difficult place to play. We made some things hard on ourselves, obviously, with those returns. You can't take anything away from Reggie Bush. We knew that that offense has got the hottest passer in the National Football League and playing about as well as anybody. It was just important that we came out here and concentrated and not judge that scoreboard until the very end. I thought our guys did a great job of fighting. We talked about how we would have to fight all the way through this thing. I didn't know it was going to come down to the last two seconds. I like the fight of this football team. It's as good of a win as it gets. I don't know if I've ever been in one quite that way."

On Chris Kluwe's punts: "Both of those kicks are supposed to be out of bounds. When we say to somebody to kick the ball out of bounds that's what you expect to get. That's what I expect to happen from a professional football kicker. It's no different than kicking away from the guy in Chicago (Devin Hester). There's nothing wrong with that. I'm disappointed that we weren't able to get that done. If he can't do that, I will find somebody who can kick the ball out of bounds."

On the field goal defensive unit: "We spent a lot of time on that field goal block unit. I think we forced two misses today. Obviously, we were able to block that one. We thought we saw something. It takes those guys at the end of the drive something to muster up to be able to attack that. Obviously, Fred (Evans), Pat (Williams), Kevin (Williams), and Jared (Allen), all those guys who contribute on the outer side push did a great job of changing the line of scrimmage, which is what you need to do. Antoine (Winfield) is really the beneficiary of that block."

On Gus Frerotte: "He's a tough guy. He didn't just come back just to play tiddlywinks. He came back because he likes to compete. That's what you like the best about him. He is flat line. He doesn't get bent out of sorts. He wants to get out there and find any way possible to help our team win. That's what I appreciate most about him.

On Bernard Berrian's late touchdown: "We had to hold them a little bit longer and Bernard had to kind of weave his way through a spot that he thought he could find and Gus kind of hung with him. You know you're going to take that hit (Frerotte) at that point in time, but he did a great job of sticking that thing out there to him."

On how the Saints limited Adrian Peterson: "It's hard to tell. I'll have to go back and look at what that looks like, whether it's the fact that we were running side to side or weren't running up and down enough or weren't using enough double teams. I can't take anything away from them. They (the Saints) played exceptional. They were able to use the snap count to their advantage because it's hard to hear if you're a split second off it's got a chance to affect you. We'll go back and look at that."

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS PLAYER QUOTES

#1 K MARTIN GRAMATICA
On the missed field goal in the fourth quarter
"I pulled it. I hit it solid, but it went left. The worst thing about it is that I let the team down. Those are the toughest ones. You hurt the team when you miss those. These guys killed each other for 60 minutes. They played awesome defense. It hurts to let them down like that. It is frustrating when you have a group of guys who are tight like us. It kills you to let them down."

On the blocked field goal
"I don't know what happened on that one. I'll have to watch it on film."

#55 LB Scott Fujita
On the disappointment of the game
"I don't think you can get any more disappointed than losing a game like that. We beat ourselves. That's pretty obvious. It's encouraging the way we played defense. It was discouraging though to give up that last touchdown drive."

On the miscues
"We just beat ourselves. It was discouraging to be down 10 at the half. You were proud of everyone for fighting back, but you can't win games like that. We will never win a game again if we have those kinds of miscues."

On stopping the run game
"It was nice. I don't know what (Adrian Peterson) ended up with, but we came in the game with the mindset of stopping their running attack and that's what we did. Everybody stepped up. The defensive line was beat up, but they were huge today."

#9 QB Drew Brees
On the disappointment of the loss
"It was probably the weirdest game that I have ever been involved in. There were ebb and flows of the game, a blocked field goal for a touchdown, punt returns for touchdowns. I'm trying to digest it all right now. In the end, it's a loss. It surely is disappointing, especially when we have a chance to win it at the end. If we can get that field goal, then we are up three and we have the momentum. We had 11 penalties for 100 plus yards tonight and I don't know how you win with three turnovers. The blocked field goal and the failed onside kick are also like turnovers."

On correcting the miscues
"Turnovers are going to kill you, especially when you feel like you're the better team. Without the turnovers, I think we win this one pretty easily. Unfortunately, you put yourself at a disadvantage when you turn the ball over."

On Reggie Bush's performance
"Those two punt returns were unbelievable. It was fun to watch. It was fun for everyone in the stadium to watch. It's so disappointing to lose when you have a performance like that and the way the defense played. There was a lot of great effort and emotion out there."

#25 RB Reggie Bush
On tonight's game
"First of all, we lost this game collectively as a team. It is tough to lose a game like that especially when you get back in to the game. In the first half, we felt like we were in quicksand. We kept sinking and sinking. We fought hard in the second half, but just came up short in the end. We haven't been able to close games out in the three losses that we have. We need to learn how to close things out if we are going to be an elite team."

On the punt returns
"It was great blocking by my teammates. The first one was when we needed to put points on the board. It was huge and it energized the crowd. It was an all around team effort."

On the face mask on the fumble
"He grabbed my face mask and we didn't get the call. I still have to hold on to the ball even if he holds on to my face mask."

VIKINGS PLAYER QUOTES
#19: BOBBY WADE (WR)

"It was Monday night, the lights were on and we pulled it out. I love playing with these guys. At the end you can see we never gave up and we hung in there and pulled out a victory. And we did it on the road, in a tough place. So we're really happy right now."

26 Antoine Winfield (CB)

"It was an amazing night. On the first TD, I had a special dance planned going into the end zone! But seriously the ball just popped out and the next thing I knew the end zone was mine. It's a great feeling knowing the end zone is right in front of you."

Q: WAS THIS A PRO BOWL KIND OF NIGHT?
A: "I don't know. I really didn't keep track all night the things I was doing. All I was focused on was winning the game. Anything I can do to help the team win, I'm all there. The only thing I did not do tonight was get a pick; maybe next time. But we came out with a big win and that's what we came down here to do."

#87 BERNARD BERRIAN (WR):
"To be real honest, I ran the wrong route on that play. I was supposed to run a post -corner . It was actually thrown to Andre. I ran the wrong route, but I was just determined to go up there and catch it, man. It just hung up there and I made a play. But overall, we still left a lot of plays out there on the field. We knew it was going to be a battle coming in and we were just fortunate to get a victory."

#12 GUS FREOTTE (QB):
"I will not tell you who ran the wrong route. But I do know I had to get rid of it because they (Saints) were coming with the blitz. I also knew I had to get some air on it and put it out there and let them make a play. I just threw it up there. I'm laying on the ground and I got up and saw Bernard made the ultimate play."

"I love this team, the feeling we have in the huddle. All of the guys here, they're looking at me and have trust in what we are doing & have trust in me. It was a tough game, a lot of three and outs. But we hung in there and got it done. With all of the things we experienced – the Reggie Bush punt returns, the penalties, on and on. We did what we had to do to win the game."