ShareThisAnthony Herrera wanted to know the line of questioning before agreeing to an interview Wednesday. The Minnesota Vikings right guard made it clear he wanted no part of a certain story angle hovering over the team.
"You know what it is," he said.
Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe later feigned ignorance when asked about the Brett Favre-Brad Childress brouhaha.
"What happened?" he deadpanned. "For real, what happened?"
Point taken. While Favre and Childress addressed myriad reports about tension in their relationship during separate news conferences, Vikings players said the issue has not infiltrated the locker room and become a distraction.
"In this locker room and this organization, you have to be able to put things behind you and move on, and we're all here for the right purpose and same reason, which is to win," veteran offensive lineman Artis Hicks said. "We have a great quarterback, and he's all about that. And we have a great head coach, and he's all about that. So when you have those common goals, it will take care of itself. So I honestly don't think it's an issue. I honestly don't."
But whether they like it or not, the Favre-Childress situation brought an undesirable national spotlight to a team that has lost two of its past three games, has looked bad in the process and is being chased by the Philadelphia Eagles for a first-round bye in the playoffs.
Not surprisingly, Vikings players said they are focused only on making necessary corrections and not the coach-quarterback relationship.
"What people don't understand, the locker room is like a family," defensive end Jared Allen said. "The team is like a big family. You're going to have times when people butt heads, you're going to have times when people don't agree with each other, but guess what, that's what it is. We don't hold grudges. It's not a big sewing circle over here where three weeks down the road where you're mad at someone, (saying) 'You looked at me wrong.' You deal with it, you move on and you get ready to win some games. The biggest frustrating factor around here is that we lost that game. That's what we're upset about. All the other nonsense that has been stirring around, that's not even on our mind. That's outside distractions we don't need. We focus on the Bears. We focus on coming back and winning an NFC North game."
Favre said the issue has been "blown way out of proportion," which was a common refrain inside the locker room.
"In here, its no big deal," Shiancoe said. "We're too worried about winning these last two games. ... We have to win these next two games, and that's really it."
Running back Chester Taylor lightened the mood when asked about Childress' "stream of consciousness" comment regarding his attempt to remove Favre from Sunday's game. Taylor said he didn't understand the meaning when asked for his interpretation.
"Brad says a lot of words I don't really understand sometimes," Taylor said. "I'm pretty sure he means good by it. I'll have him explain it to me."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Minneapolis Star Tribune
Post new comment