Vikings coach Leslie Frazier said at his introductory news conference Monday that Brett Favre will remain his starting quarterback and that there will be no move to Tarvaris Jackson.

"There's no hesitation for me in that regard," Frazier said of sticking with Favre. "Brett's a tremendous quarterback. He's been a leader of our football team in the year and a half that he's been with us. There are some things that we have to do as a group to help support Brett, and that will be my message to our football team. But Brett Favre will be our quarterback on Sunday."

Frazier, who had been the defensive coordinator, was introduced hours after Brad Childress was fired as the Vikings coach. Frazier did not say whom he would select to replace himself as the defensive coordinator, although it's believed Fred Pagac is the leading candidate to be moved up from linebackers coach.

It was well known that Favre and Childress did not see eye-to-eye on how the Vikings offense was run. So will Favre get more freedom under Frazier?

"If you ask Brett that question I'm sure he would say, 'Give me all the latitude in the world,'" Frazier said. "But we do have a system in place, there may be some tweaks to the system. We're going to talk about that. But Brett like all of our players has to play within the scheme of our defense, our offense, our special teams. One of the things that we talked to our players about at the 1 o'clock meeting is that no one individual irregardless of names or accolades is bigger than our team and I think all our guys understand that and all they want to do is be a part of a successful group.

"And Brett's no different. He wants to be successful within the scheme and we want him to go ahead and play the way he's capable of playing and we're going to try to surround him and help him in any way that we can. But he'll play within the scheme."

Meanwhile, owner Zygi Wilf did not answer any questions about Frazier's potential for keeping the job long term or if the structure in the Vikings organization might change now that Childress is gone. "Right now we are focusing on the Washington Redskins and the rest of our season," Wilf said when asked if Frazier was a candidate to keep the job.

It's likely Wilf had gotten that from Frazier. That because Frazier made that point very clear as he addressed the Vikings earlier Monday afternoon for the first time as head coach. His intention is to put all the focus on this Sunday's game at Washington and not look back at what has gone wrong in a 3-7 season that got Childress fired.

"[I] Really tried to challenge our guys as we look forward to this next ballgame, as we prepare for the Washington Redskins -- just stressing to them the importance of looking forward and not looking back," Frazier said. "There will be a lot of things written about the past, but the one thing I'm hoping that all of our players recognize, is that we can only do what we can do going forward, and that means our focus and our attention has to be on the Washington Redskins, period. Anything else is really inconsequential to what we have to achieve as a group, and that's the one thing I tried to get across to our players."

Etc.

  • Frazier confirmed that right guard Anthony Herrera suffered a torn ACL in his left knee on Sunday and will be lost for the season.