What’d They Say: Brees, Payton on ‘Long History’ with & Respect for Zimmer

[Viktor]

Here are other highlights from the Saints talking about the Vikings this week:


Payton on the Vikings recent use of a rotation at cornerback:


“I don’t know if it directly impacts the preparation, because sometimes you go into a game and there’s a corner assigned to [Michael Thomas]. Certainly, you study the techniques of those corners, the strengths and weaknesses. I think it happens more than you think during the course of a season, and it may not be because there’s a rotation, but it’s pretty common where all of a sudden a corner is out for a series or two. Maybe it’s a small nick.


“You’ve got to plan for the defense first, and then you pay attention to the traits of each corner, the traits of the safety, the traits of the nickel and the personnel that you’re seeing in your game plan. One of the challenges is game-planning for a base defense or a nickel defense and how they’re going to see your own personnel. ‘Are they going to treat this with base or nickel?’ And predicting that type of thing. That’s Mike’s expertise, on the back end, so I think playing defensive back for Zim’ is probably a challenge in a good way because he’s so good at coaching that position, and his expectation of what he wants at that position is extremely high.”


Brees on his connection to the Minneapolis Miracle game:


“… As far as this game being a ‘revenge game’ or anything like that, I don’t look at it like that at all. These are two totally different seasons, right? That was two years ago. I will say this – a lot of the same players [are] on that team, on defense at least. So what that tells me is, those guys have done an done an excellent job of maintaining what I think is an extremely solid group on defense. Those guys play very hard, they play very well together, they’re very well coached, so we’ve got our work cut out for us this week.”


Brees on Vikings DEs Everson Griffen & Danielle Hunter:


“Which one? How about both of them? How about all of them? That’s been the strength of this defense for a long time. Those guys’ ability to get after the passer, they’re one of the league leaders in sacks, and then that directly relates to their ability to take the ball away. They’ve got a ball-hawking secondary; they’ve got linebackers that are great at getting the ball out and just being around the ball. It’s a very aggressive defense from that standpoint, and that’s something they thrive on, so it’s something we have to make sure we pay close attention to.”


T Terron Armstead on memory of last season’s win over Minnesota:


“It was a good game. I think we did a lot of things well in that game, especially coming off the loss in Minnesota. I think we imposed our will, especially toward the end of the game, and we were rolling. But this year, we just have to be ready to handle business Sunday, execute this game plan and get ready to go to Green Bay.”


Armstead on Hunter/Griffen duo:


“Two very good players, for sure. Extremely productive. Yeah, we have some experience against them, but it’s definitely going to be a tough challenge. Just going to have to be on top of our protection plan – what we’re trying to do to them, what we’re trying to take away – and get ready to play ball.”