Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera
RE: What did the Minnesota defense do to cause pressure?
“Well, when you get into the situation where you have a lead, you can do what you want. That’s the truth of the matter. We didn’t capitalize when we had opportunities. You go 217 yards in the first half, and you have a 10-8 lead, you have to give credit to them for keeping us from scoring. That’s on us. We can’t turn the ball over. We can’t miss opportunities. We can’t have penalties that take away opportunities.”
RE: Minnesota’s short passing game in the second half affecting the outcome
“That had nothing to do with it. You can’t have ten penalties for 65 yards with the number of plays that were negated. That’s really what it comes down to more than anything else. We shot ourselves in the foot.”
RE: Did Cam Newton’s ankle injury affect performance?
“No, you can ask him and he will tell you it didn’t impact him. There are things that go on that we have to do as a football team that again, this goes back to the mistakes we made and the silly penalties we had more than anything else. That goes on me. Like I said, it’s about discipline, and if we aren’t playing disciplined, then I’m not doing something right. So I have to get that corrected.”
RE: Did the events of this week affect the outcome?
“I don’t think that is fair. I really don’t. Because when we are here, we practice and we do the things we are supposed to. We got out and we answered the questions. What happened here was very tragic and what we were hoping to do was come out and put that aside for a while. We just didn’t play very well. I’m not looking for excuses. The tragedy is its own entity and we have to respect that.”
RE: Injuries
“Vernon Butler has a high ankle sprain is pretty much the only thing I really know about.”
Panthers QB Cam Newton
RE: How the defensive pressures affected the game
“They were doing a lot. They were dictating to us after they got the momentum rather than opposite from what we were doing starting the game. It was running the football extremely well, keeping them off balance and then all of a sudden, you know, after the safety it was good riddance. That’s a great football team, built very solid from the back end as well as the front seven. We just have to be better.”
RE: How Kelvin Benjamin did not have any receptions and if the Vikings defense had an impact on that
“Whatever they were doing was effective. We have to have answers for it so that can’t happen again. We have to get our playmakers involved in the game plan and it starts with me as the signal caller. For him not to have any touches is, you know, really baffling and wowing.”
Panthers WR Kelvin Benjamin
Re: Finishing without a catch and with one target
“I’ve got a job to do. I just go out and run the routes.”
Re: His block in the back penalty that negated a touchdown
“It was two-sided. One hand was on the back of his shoulder on one side, and one was on the front side. They called it.”
Re: Frustration with the referees
“Yeah, but as a team, you can’t leave it in the officials’ hands. You know what I mean? When you got a team down 10-something, you’ve got to finish.”
Re: The events of this week
“There were conversations in the locker room about it, but you can’t blame it on that. We’ve got a job to do each week. We’ve just got to come out here and play ball and win.”
Panthers TE Greg Olsen
Re: Seemingly in control at halftime
“We were dominating the game in every single statistic but the score. To look up at the scoreboard and see 200-and-something yards and ten points is tough. To see them only having 30 yards and eight points, it was just the story of our day. The second we got close to midfield, scoring range, we seemed to just go backwards.”
Re: If the events of this week were a distraction
“I think everyone is pretty aware of what’s happening. I think everyone is pretty aware of the climate right now in our city. This game was not to save lives and change the world. We wanted our city to feel good today; that’s obvious. Maybe a little more-so than a typical Sunday, maybe. I think once the game got started for the most part it was a game.”
Panthers TE Ed Dickson
Re: Minnesota’s defensive performance
“It seems like they watched a lot of film on us. We definitely have to go back and scout ourselves. Make sure we aren’t giving any tendencies away and everything like that. Before looking at it, I was out there playing so I can’t really tell you what blitzes they brought to get there, but they got there a lot today.”
Panthers DT Kawann Short
Re: Minnesota QB Sam Bradford
“He’s a smart quarterback. He adjusts and that’s scary. As a defensive line, you want to see those quarterbacks get scared and move off their spots. That’s one thing we didn’t do. As far as up the middle, I take credit for that. We didn’t get enough push and get that guy off his spot. When you see a quarterback back there, poised and looking through his reads, that’s not good for the defense as far as the defensive tackles. We didn’t get a good push.”
Re: Blowing a 10-point lead
“We know a lot of people are coming after us and a lot of people want that spot. We hold ourselves to a higher standard in this locker room. You see the guys that want to win and want to do better, but it all comes from within the organization. It’s a sad feeling — a terrible feeling — to get this loss in front of the home crowd. We didn’t finish the job. We were on the gas and we let up during the second half. As a team that wants to be the best, you have to finish.”
Panthers LB Luke Kuechly
Re: Is the team desperate for a win next week?
“Obviously you want to be two-and-two rather than one-and-three. It looks better. It feels better. Helps you in the playoff picture, so I don’t think desperate is the word right now. I think it’s just that you have to take advantage of your opportunities.”
Panthers S Tre Boston
RE: No pregame anthem protest
“We had a plan. Kind of like the Seahawks, it took them two weeks, about 10 days. We had a plan; we thought it would be passed by. But people kind of needed time to think about it to get it through everything because it happened Tuesday. We didn’t come up with a real good plan until yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, so to pass it through everybody to get it all the way upstairs it was kind of hard. We didn’t want to rush anything. Once you take a stand you want to be able to take that stand next week, the week after, and if you have to for life. We have to make sure we do this the right way to represent everybody.”
RE: If he saw what Marcus Ball did
“Yeah, I was right next to him. It’s something I felt very strong about. I commend him for doing that because that’s something I wanted to do. That’s something a lot of us thought about doing and we all support what’s going on. I think we’re going to again, find a way to do it to where nobody can twist what we are trying to do. Nobody can misinterpret the direction we want to go with our protest. We want to find a way again to make sure everybody’s included so nobody can say well you left out this person, you left out this person. We want to make sure there’s unity. We want unity. We need it here in Charlotte. We need everybody to come together from the media, NFL players, to the community to the police officers. We want to make sure that everybody’s fair in this and we don’t leave out anybody’s life.”
In difficult and challenging times, this wonderful nation needs UNITY and LOVE. I LOVE the city of Charlotte and I LOVE my TEAM. That is what my gesture was intended to express: #1LOVE #KEEPPOUNDING☝????️