Vikings players are consistent when it comes to applauding the consistency with which coach Leslie Frazier does his job. Never too high, never too low. Just delivering a consistent message week after week.
"I think it's a big deal," Frazier said when asked to describe the importance of a consistent message. "Just going back to my playing days and being around coaches who sometimes they could be so up and down. You didn't know when you walked in the building what you were going to get from day to day. That's hard on a team over the course of a long season. There are so many ebbs and flows during a season.
"As a player, if you're not certain what your leader's message is going to be and how he's going to react in certain situations, you can be walking around on pins and needles and be more concerned about how he's going to react to certain situations as opposed to focusing on the task at hand, which is your next opponent. So I think it's a big deal. They need to know what to expect from me in just about every situation. Then they can concentrate on what's important, which is trying to get a win."
FYI: They'll take the win over the record: Frazier said he wants Adrian Peterson to get the 208 yards necessary to break Eric Dickerson's NFL single-season record of 2,105 yards. However ...
"I think the biggest consideration has to be winning this game," he said. "Finding a way to get a win. If the record comes along with the win, that would be great. But not at the expense of winning the game. We got to approach this with whatever it takes to get a win. And Adrian wants that too. He'd love to have the record, but he's the ultimate team guy. He wants to get the win. I hope he gets the record but even moreso I want us to win this game."
Expecting better run defense from Cheeseheads: Frazier said he expects a lot of teams to look at how the Texans handled Peterson on Sunday. Peterson ran for 86 yards on 25 carries, snapping a streak of eight consecutive games with at least 100 yards.
"But like I said on Monday, a lot of it in our business is personnel," Frazier said. "[Texans defenders] Antonio Smith and J.J. Watt are very good players and they did a good job. But Green Bay, they have good personnel as well."
On Dec. 2, Peterson ran for 210 yards in a loss at Lambeau Field. The rematch -- in case you haven't heard -- is Sunday at the Metrodome.