CharityMike

By Amos Morale III amorale@nola.com,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune


Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford posted some career numbers against the New Orleans Saints Monday night and was sacked just once. While Saints players and coaches said the defensive showing was "lackluster," linebacker A.J. Klein offered his take on why the defensive front was unable to consistently get to Bradford.

"We have to be able to cover long enough to get more pressure on the quarterback," Klein said Tuesday afternoon. "We didn't do a good enough job on our pressures when we did blitz and obviously our man-to-man coverage and some situations that we gave up the edge and gave up some runs.

"We just have to better overall. There's really no if, ands, buts or way's around it."

The Saints had busts in their coverage that lead to a touchdown for Stefon Diggs and a few big catches for Adam Thielen.

Klein said personally he has to be better in coverage and pointed to specific instances where he felt he gave up plays.

He pointed to a third-and-5 on the Vikings first drive where the Vikings were in a bunch formation and Diggs was able to make a play extend the drive which lead to a Minnesota field goal.

"They ran a little bunch formation and ran Diggs underneath and I tried to chase him down and he just out ran me for me," Klien said. "The technique portion of that -- getting in the way of receivers and being sound in my match principals to allow our d-line to get after 'em."

Rest of story:Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says | NOLA.com