HEAD COACH JOHN FOX: (on the win) Tough, hard-fought victory. It s a very difficult team to come up here and beat. I thought that our guys played hard. They played their hearts out; just tough, hard moves, gritty football. It wasn t pretty, but when you re playing a team like that, that has the kind of ability they have, for our guys to be able to slow down the run game like they did on the defensive side of the ball, they did a tremendous job in terms of covering and a nice job in terms of locking the receivers up man-to-man and playing with them. (on the game as a whole) We don t really have any injuries to report, we came out of the game pretty healthy. (on Aaron s injury and performance in the fourth quarter) I ve seen him play a lot and competed against him and he s never looked very hampered, tonight included. (on confidence coming into the game) I think we came off of a tough loss last Sunday at home, we had to flush that really fast. I like our group of guys as far as the way they go about their business. They re willing to work. They wiped it pretty fast and the whole Sunday to Thursday thing is kind of tricky, but with the leadership in that locker-room, they handled it very well. You have to recover fast and a lot of it s, we do the right things as work, that when they leave our building, I think the guys did a good job of refreshing themselves. (on the offense s performance) You look at a Marc Mariani, I mean he s a guy who just stepped in and made big catches, big plays on third down. You know, Jay does a great job of buying time to let guys come free. Getting Alshon (Jeffery) back was big, you know, looking at guys in that locker-room who maybe not had great success here, they included, were fun to watch. (on going forward) I think it wasn t so much about who we were playing or where we were playing, it was more about us. I think, even though we ve lost some close games, I think they ve gained some confidence in those experiences and now it was finally nice to be able to convert one of those close contests against a very worthy opponent. QUARTERBACK JAY CUTLER (on the team s effort) Offensively, I don t think we are going to like the film that much because we didn t play as well as we wanted to. Defensively, you have to hand it to them. A heck of an effort on the defensive side. You have to give them a lot of credit. (on this year s defense compared to last) It s amazing. A lot of new faces over there. You look across that side and there s not a lot of guys from last year. And for them to gel that quickly, learn a new system, it speaks a lot of our coach on how good of a job they re doing. It speaks a lot about the players and what kind of character and what kind of players we have on that side. (on team s confidence going into the game) I think this has been a confident group all year long. I think once we started playing some tight games, winning a few, we have been in a lot of games in the fourth quarter and we ve won some and we ve lost some. But the theme is that we have always been there, we ve always had a shot. This team hasn t really flinched from that moment on. I think Coach Fox has been sending the message and guys have been listening and believing in him. (on this year s performance at Lambeau Field compared to last) I don t even remember the last time that we left this stadium, honestly, because so much has changed, so much is new, and I really enjoy those guys in the locker-room and the coaching staff. I think you look across that locker-room and you see a lot of guys playing for each other which is fun. (on winning at Lambeau) Yeah, it s huge. It s been a fun week, for me. The Sunday game, and having a baby on Monday, and turning around and playing Thursday. So now I think that everyone is looking forward to going home and spending some time with family. (on the offense s performance after the first take-away) We are trying to get better at that. To get better in the red-zone, better off turn-overs than we have. Being able to get seven instead of three because that s devastating to the other team when you can make a quick change like that, punch it in and get a quick seven. Offensively, we have to get better at doing that.
TIGHT END ZACH MILLER: (on getting their first division win) "It feels great, especially here in this setting, on the road, Thursday night and on Thanksgiving with the whole world watching. It was just a really good night for us." (on his second quarter touchdown catch) "It was a great call. Adam (offensive coordinator Adam Gase) put us in position with a great call. Jay (Cutler) had to buy some time to get the ball off. I had an easy job. I was wide open. I just had to catch it. Great call by Adam and a good throw by Jay." (on Jay Cutler's play tonight) "Resilient. I thought he made some huge plays on third down. He stayed in the pocket well. His leadership and confidence are so high right now. It is awesome playing with him." SAFETY CHRIS PROSINSKI: (on Chicago's defense) "I think we had great communication and everyone was just focused on their job. Coach Vic (defensive coordinator Vic Fangio) put us in great positions. For me, he is a genius. He is the first coordinator that I have had that I can really understand as far as what he is trying to do with the game plan. A lot of credit goes to him." (on limiting Aaron Rodgers) "You don't ever plan to really shut him down because of the elite quarterback that he is, but for us, the safeties and secondary disguised things a lot of the time. He likes to get to the line of scrimmage and read what the defense is and manage the game that way, so we just tried to hold our coverages. Like I said before, we had really good communication in this game." (on his strip of Eddie Lacy) "I just pursued from behind and tried to wrap up and get an arm on it. Right when I got contact, I felt the ball slip, but I wasn't able to see what had happened until I saw the pile." CORNERBACK TRACY PORTER: (on his fourth quarter interception) "The front seven did a good job of putting pressure on him. I read the route that he was trying to make. They were trying to make a quick throw and I just beat him to the spot." (on the fourth quarter third-and-goal play to James Jones) "I was in that situation once before with Calvin Johnson and he happened to catch the touchdown, so I told myself that I wouldn't put myself in that position again. I had some leverage and I was able to make a play on the ball." (on winning a close game) "Every game is big, but we are still in the playoff hunt so this game was huge. We just had to come out and play together, execute in all phases and that is what we did. I have been saying that we have a great defense all along. We just have to continue to have that chemistry of playing with each other. The more and more we play with each other, the better we will become."
HEAD COACH MIKE McCARTHY: (opening statement) Difficult loss this evening. You need to win your home games. That s the thought process that s clearly prevalent each and every time we line up to play here at Lambeau Field. We didn t get it done tonight. I think one of the biggest factors was handling of the football. Opportunities to care for the football, protect the football, we didn t do a very good job. They did a better job. We had some opportunities for takeaways, we didn t get it done. When you practice each and every day, and things you emphasize and you expect to show up in performance and it doesn t, it s a bit frustrating. So, a hard loss, congratulations to Chicago. It was a tough game, we knew the weather conditions were going to be a challenge. It was a challenge for both teams. We did some good things, had some big plays, and they made more plays than we did. Had an opportunity at the end there down at the goal line with the shots and we didn t get it done. We have to get these guys healthy here in the next two days, and we ll get on Detroit on Sunday. But you ve got to take care of business at home, especially. And we didn t do that tonight. Disappointing. I ll take your questions. (on getting Davante Adams back on track) He didn t have a very good day today. The practices, the preparations, I don t see an issue. But the carryover, the consistency that we re getting from certain areas needs to pick up. Too many mental errors, so we ve just got to keep working and we definitely need to get better as we go into Detroit. (on the interception Aaron Rodgers threw) Well, it was a basic route. It didn t look like it was a very good route. I didn t have a very good perspective on it, and then you know, there was a collision with the defender about six or seven yards down the field and that s the result of it. (on what he expected from the Bears defense on the 8-yard line?) Coverage. We expected coverage. They played coverage. We didn t win on the perimeter and we really didn t have anywhere to go with the football, is what I saw. (on winning the battles on the perimeter on offense) You know, it s like each and every week, it s a different battle. You have one-on-one battles based on what the defense is playing. You have two-short coverages, you have three-short coverages, but at the end of the day you have to beat the guy over you, particular with the leverage he s playing. We could do a better job. (on any issues with Rodgers left arm) He s a tough son of a gun. Aaron took a couple shots there in the elbow and the hand and he was able to play through it. I really don t have the extent of the injury. I haven t been in the training room yet. (on the defense s performance) I thought the receiver screens were really productive for them. The ability to get their line down the field so quickly and get up on us. We ve got to do a better job there, particularly on the long drive. Like I said, they handled the ball well. They did a good job on some of the longer down and distances, particularly with the screens. I thought we did a good job at the line of scrimmage, frankly on both sides of the ball. I thought our defensive line, it looked like we did a pretty good job up front there. I thought our offensive line, particularly in the run game, did a good job. (on Eddie Lacy s fumble) The ball was away from his body. The defender hit it out from behind. That s not the way you carry the ball. (more)
(on where the team goes from here) Well, we re going to go beat Detroit, that s where we have to go from here. This is a disappointing loss, it s versus an arch rival. It s a game we expect to win, but we didn t play well enough to win. The preparation on the field, I was very pleased with it, but we re not getting it done in the classroom. We ve got to demand more as coaches, we ve got to make changes. So we ll look hard at it. We re not going to overreact to it, but there s a pattern here in certain areas and we need to adjust it, or change it or emphasize whatever we need to do to play better whenever we line up. (on where the line is between overreacting and making changes) Changes, adjustments, and emphasis. I ve been talking about it for years. That s the filter we ll run our evaluation through. We ll go through our evaluation of this game and we ll put that in the plan of Detroit and go. You won t be able to tell the difference. There may be something different. You guys are excellent with the personnel distribution and things like that, but there s no big something is broke here. We ve got to do a better job on the little things. If we make plays on the ball tonight, the outcome has a real good chance to change. That s the difference between winning and losing in this league. (on if the running game is the best thing his team has going) Well, I mean, it was the last two weeks. I thought it was clearly a strong point of our football team coming into the season. That s more for postseason evaluation, but I like the way we ran the ball tonight. (on if the offense needs to emphasize the run even more) I think we emphasize it, it s A, number one. Every game plan I ve ever put together here it starts with the running game. (on if he s talking about dropped passes when he refers to making plays on the ball) Any time the ball is available. You guys go to practice. We ve been doing more damn ball drills here than in the history of football, and it didn t show up here tonight.
QUARTERBACK AARON RODGERS: (on his hand injury) "It was a cold night with the wind and the rain and the temperature. I lost feeling in my hand for a good portion of the third quarter (and) fourth quarter." (on handing off with his off hand and when he got feeling back in his hand) "I work on that in practice sometimes for a situation like that. I'm waiting to get it (feeling) back in a couple fingers, but it's okay in the first three." (on his frustration level and how it compares to other points in his career) "That's hard to compare. It's so fresh after another tough loss at home. (It's) disappointing, (we had) a lot of chances. We had the ball there on the 1 (yard line) and had a pass interference penalty that took us back. We had a screen pass that looked like it was going to be a walk-in touchdown that we didn't convert on the same drive (and) settled for a field goal there in the second quarter. (We) come back, run for (a) first down, we have a holding call and we're still in field goal range (but) we have a snap issue (that) took points off the board. The second to last drive, we're moving the ball, interception, and then the last drive we had a chance. We had a lot of chances for points. This is on us. We had the opportunities to win this game, we didn't do it." (on the interception) "It was a slant route. I threw it on time and Te (Adams) ran into the safety there who was coming down to get Richard (Rodgers), so it was a gift interception there for (Tracy) Porter." (on the play of Davante Adams) "We'll look at the film and evaluate. We're very honest in our evaluations. Everybody's got to play better, obviously. We've lost four games, two at home, which is uncharacteristic of us the last couple years, and I think we've all got to look in the mirror and play better, myself included." (on the third down play to James Jones on the final drive) "They had it covered initially. I was moved in the pocket, kind of saw him breaking back out, took a shot, and I didn't see if it was tapped away or if he had a chance to catch it, but on fourth down it was kind of a scramble alert. We actually had Randall (Cobb) in the back possibly and Te (Adams) thought it was to him." (on if they could have run the ball on the final series) "Possibly. We had a couple good calls though. The first two plays they covered them pretty well. Third down and fourth down were scramble opportunities, so (it's) frustrating. I liked the calls there, all four of them. We probably could have ran it there, one of them, but I liked the calls." (on if he felt handcuffed with the struggles of James Jones and Davante Adams) "I wouldn't say that, no. We've got to execute better. I think we had some good plays called, we had some good opportunities. The weather was difficult, but I think we pushed through it pretty well. We had some opportunities. I've got to throw it better and we've got to catch it more often." (on how they get back on track offensively) "It's tough because last week we scored on seven possessions and we moved the ball efficiently. I would have expected this to be a more efficient game. Penalties killed us though. We had way too many penalties. We turned the ball over twice. They didn't turn the ball over, which has kind of been the shift in the rivalry. We've won a lot of these games because we're winning the turnover margin. Today we were minus two, and that's why you lose games." (on if he got to see Bart Starr before the game) "I saw Bart (Starr) and Brett (Favre) before the game. We had a chance to spend some time together. It was good to see him (Starr). He's doing well, so it was fun to see that Bart's doing well, and Brett looks great as well. He's pretty slim. He's running triathlons." (more)
(on if the offense can get back to what it has been in the past) "Every year's different. I think we can definitely be more efficient, but every year's different. It's measured against each other sometimes, but (we have) different personnel. We ran it well tonight, which was good. Eddie (Lacy) did a good job, James (Starks) was a good change-up for us, did a good job on the screens, but we've got to be better in the passing game." (on if they have to run the ball more) "It depends. Today they played a lot more two-high. They were hanging that safety low at times to have a pseudo 7-man box, but we had some better run opportunities today. A lot of teams have been playing us just strictly one-high man. Today was more of some combo coverage with some two-high safeties at times. When they do that we've got to run the ball, and we did run the ball well today." (on if he's had similar issues with his hand before) "It's my left hand, I'll be alright. It's happened on both hands before, yeah." (on the long pass play to Cobb on the final drive) "They blitzed, it was one-on-one, he did a good job of getting off the ball. He went across the field there and (did) a great job with the catch and stiff arm, and that was a big play for us." (on what he can do to help the team get back on track) "I just think that I'm obviously going to have to make sure that my preparation is as high as it's ever been, because we've got to get on the same page in the passing game. The run game has been better the last couple weeks. Obviously Eddie (Lacy) being healthy has helped. We're just on different pages. When you miss throws, when I'm throwing at a certain depth and the receiver's running at a certain depth, obviously we're on different pages. We need to have some better communication and make sure there's not those discrepancies in the depths and the adjustments." (on how long it's been since the offense has had issues being on the same page) "It's a different year, different personnel and it's frustrating because we shouldn't have some of those issues. It's 11 games in, but we're having those. (This was a) short week, now we have a normal week and then a break, so this will be an important time for us to (play) a team that's playing well, Detroit. They beat us, they've been playing well the last couple weeks and we're going to have to go in there and get a win."
GUARD T.J. LANG: (on what happened on the fourth-down play) I don t know. I didn t really see anything that happened. I was blocking somebody, naturally. (on the offense getting in a rhythm tonight) Well, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot, penalties, not converting on the short yardage, stalling out drives, third down wasn t really good for us. So, yeah, it s just the same things that ve been hindering us all year. We re not going to go anywhere, anywhere we want to be, if we keep making the same mistakes. (on the offense stalling out and putting themselves in tough yardage positions) Yeah, I mean we re just not executing, you know. That s the simplest way I can put it. (on what was working with the running game) I think Eddie and James both ran hard. First half, I felt like we were really on a roll. Second half, we did get them involved. It seemed like they were still working for us, but I don t know what the final numbers are but probably would have liked to have a few more attempts. DEFENSIVE END DATONE JONES: (on any extra pressure to win tonight with Brett Favre and Bart Starr at the stadium) My focus is on the Chicago Bears tonight, you know. But you ve got a guy like Brett Favre, Bart Starr coming back, you want to win games. We have a lot of alumni here tonight. We were playing amongst some of the greats and for them to see that, for them to go out on Thanksgiving, away from their families, we didn t get the job done. I know I m still a young guy on this team, I ve been around, this is my third year and we just didn t finish and you ve got to do a better job we re all brothers in this locker room and we ve got to do a better job of competing and finishing. (on how they fix coming out flat) Follow our coaches game plan. Our coaches set the game plan, they give us all the things, what the opposing team is going to run on offense. At times we ve got to come up and make big plays. That s as simple as that. (on the defense making a stop but the offense being unable to convert) Man, I ve seen Aaron Rodgers make a lot happen for this defense. That s our quarterback, we re going to ride with him. We re going to ride with No. 12 regardless. He s a special player. You don t get them all the time, you know, it doesn t happen like that in this world. And we know he s going to be great for us at the end of the season. Next game he s going to be great for us, so we re not worried. No. 12 is a special player. We just have to do a better job competing. RUNNING BACK EDDIE LACY: (on his back-to-back games with 100 yard rushing) I mean, if you don t win, to me, like it doesn t matter. But we definitely did a great job at blocking the holes up front and they did a good job of getting us places and enough space to run the ball. (on how frustrated he was after the fumble) Very frustrated, especially because they scored after it. In that position or any position where you have to carry the ball, what you don t want to do is fumble. I mean, I didn t see the guy behind me, should have just kept it with two hands and just went to the ground but when you fumble it s not a good feeling. (on what s going wrong with the offense) I don t know. We put a game plan together and we just have to execute. Today we didn t execute to the best of our abilities, and that s something each individual player has to be responsible for.