Something is happening in Minnesota. Those who know, know. Coordinator Brian Flores didn’t just develop a defense unlike any other. He concocted a living, breathing virus inflicting pain on coaches, quarterbacks and offensive linemen in ways that seem almost preternatural.
Its magic isn’t stored away in a playbook. It happens organically when the Vikings meet.
“How can I put this in a way that most people would understand?” safety Josh Metellus wondered aloud last week. “It’s, like, when you’ve got a group of friends, and you’re trying to figure out what y’all are doing for the weekend. Everybody’s throwing out ideas.”
Maybe it’s a new way to disguise a blitz. Perhaps it’s a strategy to shift the front into a better position to play a specific run scheme. Flores will lob up a suggestion, then the football version of a think tank begins to crackle. What if we tried this? Could we hold up there? Would we be susceptible here?
Flores encourages the players to think malleably and speak bluntly. These are core components of a unit that has gone from 24th in DVOA to second in two seasons, a defense that has shown signs in training camp that it could become even more formidable with interior defensive line additions (Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave), speed at corner (Isaiah Rodgers and Jeff Okudah) and the emergence of youngsters (like former first-rounder Dallas Turner).
Okudah was considering retirement after a quiet 2024. The Vikings hope that teaming up with Brian Flores will help him reach his potential.
“We’re all bought in,” Metellus said. “That’s the biggest thing that’s been able to push us to this limit: Being able to trust in each other. Like, if Coach says it will work, we’re going to try it and we’re going to do it to our best ability. It might not work, but we’re going to give critiques honestly.”
The sessions supercharging the Vikings’ innovation can happen at any time. Discussions in the team meeting room are conducted early in the game weeks. But they extend into and even during Sundays. Metellus, for example, recalled a moment during halftime of last year’s wild-card game against the Los Angeles Rams in Glendale, Ariz.
He had been sitting next to safeties Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum, reviewing the first half. Then Flores hollered: “Everybody, come here!” The coaches had wheeled in a whiteboard, and they were scribbling a new play they wanted to run, as if it were a timeout in basketball.
The pliability takes player aptitude, fierce trust and collaboration among the staff. This was all born out of head coach Kevin O’Connell’s decision to hire Flores more than two years ago.
“I think of myself as a creative,” Flores said. “If you’ve got the thought and idea, I don’t care how extravagant it is or how outlandish it might be. I’d like to hear it, just to see if it’s possible.”
This mindset is typically confined to offense. Defensive coaches tend to believe in executing their plays and reiterate the importance of sound fundamentals. There is some of that with Flores, but his approach is more cultural. He has said his time coaching offense for the Steelers was an eye-opening experience — listening to how they game plan for third downs, craft protection plays and use motions and formations to displace the defense.
Flores has also adopted the troubleshooting strategy often associated with offensive play design. Including the players in the feedback loop is the engine behind the current success.
“It’s not, ‘The guy who I learned from told me we line up in this and do this and do this,'” the veteran Smith explained. “It’s, like, ‘What can we do that not everybody has done before that makes sense?’ So, it’s just kinda fun.”
An example of Minnesota’s fun? Flores’ MAZE (man alignment, zone execution) package.
Week 8 at Rams, 12:13 remaining in the third quarter, third-and-6
Here, the defense gives the offense the appearance of man coverage to match their bunch formation to the right.
Offenses commonly use motion as a coverage indicator. On this play, receiver Cooper Kupp motioned across the formation. Byron Murphy followed Kupp across the formation, which, 99 percent of the time, indicates the defense is in man coverage.
However, after the snap, Murphy dropped to a deep half and Smith, who was on the motion side, moved to play the “hole” in the cover 2. If Kupp didn’t take Murphy to Smith’s side, Smith would have played the deep half. The defense executed perfectly.
The coverage shift seemed to have thrown the timing or landmark of the route off for receiver Demarcus Robinson and quarterback Matthew Stafford. He sailed the ball over Robinson’s head, and it was intercepted.
The Vikings disguise their plays better than any team in the league. It’s more than simply lining up in different areas and rotating after the snap. The best quarterbacks can read body language. Even a slight lean can give away intent. The Vikings meet weekly to discuss what they are showing offenses to avoid providing tells.
In the rare instances when Flores isn’t using a disguise, offenses have to keep their guard up.
“I think we’ve built a reputation of disguise,” Flores explained. “So, what they see, they don’t think that’s what it is. And so sometimes, what they see is what it is. Other times, the disguise is that we want to show them split-safety, but it’s really post-safety. And we want to show them post-safety, but it’s really split-safety. But, I think that’s one of the things from the two years of data standpoint. People are looking for something that may or may not be there, and they don’t believe the first thing they see. So, we can kinda use that to our advantage also.”
Week 11 at Titans, 12:30 remaining in the first quarter, third-and-6
On this play, the Vikings showed man with pressure (two linebackers mugged on the A-gap) as they did in the previous example, but this time, they didn’t rotate into a zone.
They played man but dropped both outside linebackers to take away the hot routes that offenses like to hit against pressure. Linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel dropped right into the slant window Titans quarterback Will Levis wanted to target.
Up front, the Vikings had a pick game going with both linebackers. Blake Cashman picked the center, freeing Metellus to loop around him.
The offensive line and running back made multiple errors, which left Cashman and Metellus unblocked.
With both outside linebackers dropping to take away hot routes, only four defenders rushed against six blockers. Even with the offense’s numerical advantage upfront, the Vikings ended up with two free rushers right up the middle.
Flores lives in the world of extremes. He can show the offense a look and bring an all-out blitz on one snap, then drop eight on the next. Offensive coaches like to have plays that have answers for whatever the defense throws at them, but the problem with facing the Vikings is that the answers for a cover 0 blitz are much different than the answers for a drop eight, cover 2 zone.
Oftentimes, offenses must guess. Flores, meanwhile, isn’t just rolling dice.
“There’s more to it than just saying, like, ‘We’re going to be wild!'” Smith said. “I think that’s what some people think, that it’s just crazy chaos. It’s thought out. There are reasons.”
Flores considers the analytical tendencies to decipher what he thinks your answers are. That way, he can bait you into a trap.
“Analytics has been a part of what we do,” Flores said. “Definitely, my time here, but really the last seven years of my career. I think there’s so much information: tendencies, personnel groupings, displacement. Anything or any opportunity to gain insight or information to help you … I’ve always been open to it. It’s certainly something we use here.”
Week 7 vs. Lions, 10:47 remaining in the first quarter, third-and-4
The Lions are one of the most aggressive fourth-down teams in the league. On third-and-4, you can’t give them a completion. The Lions are aware that Flores knows that, so they assume he’ll be aggressive and bring heat while playing tight coverage.
So, Flores gave them a cover 0 (man-to-man with no deep safety) blitz look initially.
Quarterback Jared Goff saw the look and checked into another play designed to beat cover 0. What he didn’t know was that the Vikings would only rush three and drop eight into a funky cover 2 look.
Goff looked to a quick out immediately, which would have been a good answer against man coverage, but in cover 2, there’s a defender leveraging the flats.
A couple Lions receivers found openings in the zone, but Goff looked flustered by the coverage change, and he ended up getting sacked on this play.
So many of these non-traditional movements and alignments are hatched in the meeting room.
This is how a player like Metellus, a sixth-round pick who barely played defensive snaps before 2023, can progress into a player who can align at strong safety, free safety, left cornerback, right cornerback, slot cornerback, left inside linebacker, right inside linebacker, middle linebacker, left outside linebacker, right outside linebacker, right defensive end and left defensive tackle in one season.
This is how Van Ginkel, a fifth-rounder who began his college career at South Dakota and Iowa Western Community College, can ascend to being named a second-team All-Pro.
“It’s, like, ‘You think it’s possible for us to play quarters but run a smack blitz off that?'” Flores said. “Sometimes, the players think, ‘Is this guy nuts?'”
Even in those instances, though, the players now understand they’re likely onto something.
“Flo talks about that all the time: We have built a unique relationship where we can just talk freely,” Metellus said. “I don’t have to watch my words when I speak to the coaches. I can speak truly about what I feel if I think something doesn’t make sense. It’s, like, ‘Hell, no, I don’t want to do that.’ Then he’ll be, like, ‘Why don’t we do that this way?’ It’s constant, never-ending chatter.”
This level of workshopping wouldn’t be possible if not for a few key ingredients. For one, the rest of the coaches must have enough experience to provide input, and the Vikings’ defensive staff features multiple coaches who spent time at the college level and others with plenty of different NFL stops. Then there’s the player aptitude layer. Even the non-veterans, such as safety Theo Jackson, have the wherewithal to not only comprehend the wacky ideas but also the intelligence to apply them in real-time.
The next iteration is anyone’s guess. Will they play more man coverage with Rodgers and Okudah in the fold? Will they revert to a more simplistic four-man rush? Or, will they integrate Turner and rev up the stunt usage, while also adding increased coverages, disguises and textures on the backend?
None of these potentials would even exist if Flores viewed defense traditionally. He sees 11 spots on the field, rather than pigeon-holing players based on a position tag used on them throughout their entire careers.
The cherry on top is the fearlessness. The defensive coordinator, Smith noted, shoulders the accountability on gamedays. You can want to be creative. You can structure team meetings so the players feel comfortable enough to push back. But if you are not willing to face the consequences on Sundays, none of it matters. The magic can be conjured if the man in charge is unafraid to look foolish.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn / Associated Press)
Missing the photos, but there it is
(4 hours ago)JR44 Wrote: His various blitz packages have done well with lesser QBs, but the better QBs with quick releases have beaten it. Both the Rams and Lions really exposed it. I think he has been trying to cover up a weaker secondary, but when the blitzes are not able to create pressure or when the QBs are getting rid of it quickly the secondary is getting beat. The secondary looks like it could be an even bigger issue this year.
I think the Rams/Lions exposed our offense and left the D hanging in the wind. I don't remember being overly frustrated by the D that day, just the O-line and Darnold.
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