NFC Notes: Cardinals, Packers, Vikings

Cardinals

• According to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told him that former Cardinals OL coach Sean Kugler was clearly and positively identified through both hotel video and eyewitnesses in the incident in Mexico City that led to his dismissal earlier this year. Kugler is alleged to have groped a female security guard. 
• Kugler filed a request for arbitration with the NFL saying he was dismissed unfairly and insinuated there was potential mistaken identity, with other outlets mentioning GM Steve Keim. Kugler and Keim are both bald white men. 

Packers

Former Packers first-round S Darnell Savage has struggled this season and has since been demoted on defense. 

“I still totally believe in Darnell Savage,” Packers DC Joe Barry said of Savage, per SI.com. “We’re built on competition. Everything that we do, every single day, we’re built on that. I think the more people you have that you can play and deploy, the better. He got hurt the third play of the Philly game and then was hurt the last game (at Chicago). He’s come back healthy. I think that bye hit right at the right time for him to heal up from the injury he got against Philly. He’s had three really good days of practice the last couple days.”

“I don’t see it as much of the fall,” Packers safeties coach Ryan Downard said. “We’ve moved Darnell around to some places. These are conversations that when we all talk in here, we’ve had them multiple times about how we can use him in different ways. Obviously, you guys may view it as good, bad, rise, fall. I view it as every single day, there’s going to be ups and downs. Rudy’s done a great job. Darnell, he had a great day at practice today.”

Vikings

The Minnesota Vikings completed the largest comeback in NFL history on Saturday against the Colts, with players such as CB Patrick Peterson, QB Kirk Cousins, and even OL coach Chris Kuper feeling confident in the locker room at halftime.

“[Kuper] said it to me before we started the second half. He said, Let’s score 35 unanswered,” Cousins said, via Albert Breer of SI.com. “I thought, I mean, that’d be great. But that doesn’t just happen.”

“Their coverage might’ve just been a little bit misaligned there, because he got behind the linebacker and there was no safety in that area of the field,” Cousins said of the first touchdown. “And I think they would tell you that they needed to have somebody there. So K.J. was just kinda running to open grass and I just put it out there for him. We had connected earlier on a big play that they ruled a completion, and then the Colts challenged it and it came back as an incompletion.”

Cousins noted that there were even more issues that the team had to overcome in order to defeat Indianapolis, including a potential touchdown by CB Chandon Sullivan which was blown dead by the referees.

“That was kind of additional frustration where, even when we got something going, we couldn’t get it to hold up,” Cousins added. “And then the same for a couple of touchdowns that Chandon Sullivan had that we thought were touchdowns. Instead, it turned out to be that the whistle got blown and the play was dead. There were several things to overcome in addition to the deficit.”

• Vikings LB Jordan Hicks praised DC Ed Donatell for his willingness to listen to the players and make adjustments: “He’s a great [DC], listens to his players, understands the situations; great teacher, motivator. He brings us together. I know y’all talk, but Ed has done an amazing job this year keeping everybody in the right frame of mind.” (Andrew Krammer)
• Hicks on what changed defensively: “We were running a lot of man. That wasn’t necessarily what we’d done all year. He found what we were comfortable playing, stopping the run and trusting the guys.” (Krammer)
• Peterson continued to say at halftime that the team simply needed five touchdowns: “Nothing fazes us. We showed that in Buffalo. We showed that again today… “I guess we just got to wait and see what they say about us now.” (Krammer)