With lowered expectations for the Minnesota Vikings after a preseason injury to J.J. McCarthy, the Vikings find themselves with a 2-0 record, including a win last weekend over the defending NFC champions, the San Francisco 49ers. While a lot of attention has been on the resurgence of Sam Darnold, which deserves a lot of attention, I wanted to do a deep dive into what the Vikings and Brian Flores are doing to have so much early success.

Changes in Defensive Personnel

Before getting into how the Vikings have been having success on defense, I think it’s important to start with changes they’ve made in their defensive personnel. The most notable departures from last season were starting edge rusher Danielle Hunter and linebacker Jordan Hicks. The team added free agent edge rushers Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel and 2024 first-round pick Dallas Turner to replace Hunter and free agent linebacker Blake Cashman to fill the void from Hicks. Other than these changes, the other most notable changes the team made were replacing defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga with defensive tackle Jerry Tillery and adding cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin. 

So, while the team was able to keep a central core of the defense, the team had some challenges, needing to replace their best pass rusher, a quality linebacker, and find a way to upgrade at corner opposite of Byron Murphy Jr. However, the team stepped up with the additions they made by adding impactful starters and necessary depth. It’s still early, but the additions they made have been key to the level at which their defense has been able to play to start the season.

Brian Flores’ Method of Attack

Though Brian Flores joined the team for the 2023 season, the defense was average at best and really easy to beat on their worst days last season. A lot of this came down to the young secondary players, including Lewis Cine, Andrew Booth Jr., and Akayleb Evans, not being able to step up and provide the boost the team needed. Now that the team brought in new faces to the secondary and found a suitable replacement for Hicks in Cashman, the team is able to execute a lot more of the concepts and trickery that Flores loves to throw at defenses.

Flores’ defense is known for having three safeties on the field nearly every snap and for its bluff blitz looks that have defenders drop back into coverage. While all defenses use this type of trickery pre-snap, very few use it to the degree Flores does. Flores will regularly pack the box with defenders with a heavy blitz look while often having the linebackers and safeties back out of the blitz and go into soft coverage.

This style of defense relies on pre-snap deception and forces quick post-snap processing by quarterbacks to be able to beat it. With a high number of young quarterbacks used to college offenses that required minimal reads and relied on beating pre-snap looks it's a nightmare for young, inexperienced quarterbacks and quarterbacks who aren’t great post-snap processors. Brock Purdy learned this personally last weekend. Purdy struggled for most of the game and was a bit slow on his reads, which allowed the defense to get their hands on passes and make plays.

With the defensive alignment shifting immediately after the snap, it also reduces the utility of play action as the quarterback may see a blitz look pre-snap and see a completely different defense when he brings his head up after the fake. We also saw this happen last weekend as Purdy tied his career-low number of play-action dropbacks, only taking three on Sunday. The Kyle Shanahan offense needs play action to work to operate at its peak. So, being able to nearly wipe out a key part of the team’s offense gave the team a massive advantage last weekend.

With the confusing and ever-changing looks, it also can make blitzes more effective. Though the Vikings are in the middle of the pack in blitz rates, they’re number two in the NFL in pressure rate and lead the league in sacks. So, despite the new faces and rookie Dallas Turner still adjusting to the NFL, the team is still generating pressure on a consistent basis, thanks to forcing the quarterbacks to take more time to process the defense post-snap.

That being said, this style of defense doesn’t come without a lot of risks since miscommunications, linebackers not being able to back out into coverage, or safeties not being able to fill run gaps can all lead to big plays. Also, the defense could just not simply have the athletes needing to properly run this defense. However, the team has managed to create success by keeping a lot of the same core from last year and bringing in players that fit Flores’ scheme.

Marriage of Personnel and Scheme

With a defense that asks a lot from their defenders, players knowing their responsibilities and what adjustments to make is crucial. With the team keeping a lot of core players in the secondary and Ivan Pace Jr. getting another year of experience, the players seem more confident in their assignments and have been playing at a faster speed. For the additions to the team, the team did a good job identifying players that complement Flores’ scheme well.

One of the bigger slam dunk free agent signings that went under the radar was Minnesota Golden Gophers legend Blake Cashman. Cashman developed into a coverage specialist for the Houston Texans thanks to his fluid movement skills and speed. While those fluid movement skills help in coverage, they also make it more feasible for him to break fast and go from a blitz look to dropping into coverage. With the fluid athleticism both Pace and Cashman possess, it adds a lot more functionality to the defense executing its concepts.

While Jonathan Greenard is more of a standard pass rusher to help replace Danielle Hunter, Andrew Van Ginkel is a versatile pass rusher who is also familiar with Flores’ scheme back from his Miami Dolphins days. As a biased Wisconsin Badgers fan, I felt Van Ginkel has been one of the more underrated players in the league. He can not only get pressure on the quarterback but can also operate as an off-ball linebacker in coverage as well.

That being said, the player on the team’s defense, who I think may be the most underrated player in the entire league, is Josh Metellus. Like Cashman, Metellus adds so much versatility being able to drop into both zone and man coverage but also being able to crash down in the run game. As I mentioned before, Flores loves to use three safeties, and having Metellus gives Flores a versatile chess piece.

That being said, the rest of the safeties need to also be able to hold up in coverage while still being able to help in the run game and both Harrison Smith and Camryn Bynum continue to prove they are up to the task. Despite being one of the oldest defenders in the league, Smith, like Metellus, offers the versatility to be used all over the field. Smith definitely has been getting a bit slower but he still has such a great knowledge of the game that lets him make instant breaks to clean up plays.

Is this Sustainable?

So, we are seeing a defense that plays chaotically and forces an offense either to be prepared for sudden shifts in coverage or identity pre-snap what the likely shift will be. All games always turn into a chess match between offense and defense, but most never quite to the degree of an offensive coordinator and offense going up against a Brian Flores defense. Now, seeing if Flores can keep winning these chess matches will be interesting to watch. 

Going back to last season, the defense wasn’t off to as hot of a start last year but had a solid start before flaming out by the season’s end. I think the secondary and the defense just got to a breaking point earlier in games due to being out on the field longer after Kirk Cousins was injured. However, it will be worth monitoring if we start to see some decline over the season again.

For the time being, I will continue to watch the madness that Flores is throwing at offenses and see how offenses try to adjust. If the defense wants to reach its maximum potential, it will likely need another contributor at cornerback and for Dallas Turner to develop into a complete pass rusher. Neither of those things may come this season, but the future for the defense already seems to be on a better trajectory than it was in years past.