EAGAN, Minn. — They’ve smothered offenses for a couple of seasons now. It’s the boa constrictor unit. Stress and stress and stress until the coordinator, offensive line or quarterback crumbles.
Brian Flores, the Minnesota Vikings’ third-year defensive coordinator, wouldn’t have it any other way. Operating fearlessly is who he is and what he does. The how is what’s most distinct.
Two years ago, his defense oscillated between maximum pressure and maximum coverage. Six defenders would blitz one snap, then eight defenders would drop the next.
Last year, Flores turned down the mayhem — a bit. The Vikings leaned more into four-man pass rushes and complex coverages. One defensive coach described the evolution from 2023 to ’24 as a “software upgrade.”
Another is planned. With Flores, who knows what that will mean?
The clues always lie in the team’s personnel additions. Swapping Danielle Hunter and D.J. Wonnum for Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel last offseason made it possible for Minnesota to drop its edge rushers into coverage. Exchanging Jordan Hicks for Blake Cashman allowed the Vikings to cover more ground over the middle of the field with Ivan Pace Jr. going frantically after the quarterback.
This brings us to the last few weeks. The Vikings prioritized interior defenders in free agency. Milton Williams was in play before the New England Patriots pushed his value through the roof. With him off the board, the Vikings acted quickly, adding former Washington Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen and former San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. Minnesota guaranteed close to $50 million total to the two players. You’d best believe there is a purpose.
The easiest way to explain the vision is to review the Vikings’ production in 2024 when defensive tackles Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard played 513 snaps together. Many of those snaps came in five-down fronts. Minnesota’s effectiveness against the run in those situations is crystal clear. Opposing teams averaged only 4.0 yards per carry, and the Vikings’ success rate during those snaps was close to 65 percent.
Phillips and Bullard clogged gaps. They paved paths for Cashman and Pace to unimpededly crash into ball carriers. Stopping the run meant lengthy downs and distances for opposing offenses. And the further offenses had to go meant more time for the Vikings defense to complicate the picture for the quarterback. Everything was intertwined. Minnesota would not have ranked as the No. 2 defense behind Philadelphia in DVOA (an all-encompassing evaluation metric accounting for strength of schedule) if not for the roles Phillips and Bullard played.
Yet it’s also essential to consider the Vikings’ results with Phillips and Bullard on the field against the pass. The Vikings gave up 7.6 yards per play on those 222 snaps, according to TruMedia, a number that would leave Minnesota in the bottom third in the NFL. The Vikings’ 48.2 percent success rate in those circumstances was even worse. No NFL defense tallied that low of a success rate against the pass last season.
|
Run
|
Pass
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
Snaps |
260 |
222 |
|
Yards per play |
4.0 |
7.6 |
|
Success rate |
64.6% |
48.2% |
|
EPA/play |
14.7 |
-12.6 |
No, these struggles cannot be pinned solely on Phillips and Bullard. The pass rush links directly to coverage. However, it is notable that the Vikings generated a 24.8 percent pressure rate on snaps with Phillips and Bullard on the field. Only eight teams finished with a lower pressure rate for the season.
Furthermore, Phillips and Bullard hovered near the bottom in every meaningful pass-rush statistic. Sacks? Phillips and Bullard combined for three of them. Pressure rate? Phillips and Bullard ranked 133rd and 137th, respectively, among 138 qualified pass rushers.
Win rate paints a similar picture. So does Pro Football Focus’s pressure formula, as well as the tape. Opposing offenses allocated more help to the edges with those two on the field, giving the quarterback more time and leaving Minnesota’s coverage more susceptible.
Flores can only pull so many levers — and, for the record, he pulls as many as one in his position can — but the fix was not going to be patchwork so much as a foundational overhaul. Enough belief existed in the scheme’s ability to stop the run that the Vikings felt comfortable paying for defenders who could win one-on-one opportunities.
Enter Allen and Hargrave. They’ve combined for 87 1/2 career sacks. In 2023, when both last remained healthy for a full season, they collectively notched 113 pressures. Each also ranked in the top 20 among defensive tackles in pass-rush win rate.
|
Player
|
Pass rush snaps
|
Pressure rate
|
Pressure rate rank (among 176)
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
1,124 |
5.2% |
167 |
|
|
727 |
2.6% |
175 |
|
|
914 |
12.8% |
46 |
|
|
1,133 |
9.9% |
101 |
As if Flores’ opponents haven’t had enough to worry about in recent years, they now must decide how they’re going to try to block the Vikings front. Leave Hargrave and Allen singled up to cover for your tackles against Greenard, Van Ginkel and Dallas Turner at your own risk. Cover for your interior offensive linemen, and now Greenard, Van Ginkel and Turner are capable of side-swiping the tackle and quickly converging on the quarterback. Hargrave and Allen also have ample experience in four-down fronts, which is a shift that might inspire Flores to put another off-ball linebacker (potentially even Turner) on the field, or give him the choice to get even more creative with who is playing in the secondary.
By the way, Flores is also unafraid to line up Pace and Cashman in the A-gaps. Are they coming? Are they dropping? Is one coming? If so, which one? And what if they’re looping on a stunt? Those questions will tumble through the minds of opposing coordinators throughout the week, then the offensive linemen and quarterbacks on Sundays. Now, for the first time since he arrived in Minnesota, Flores can go all in (send the house), fold (drop eight defenders) or play the hand (send four, five or six depending on the offensive look) and feel comfortable.
This is not to say these signings make the Vikings defense foolproof. Hargrave and Allen are both over 30 and suffered serious injuries last season, which is a frequent marker of a downward trajectory. They’re also not the run-stoppers Phillips and Bullard were. Lose one of them, and the Vikings will find themselves in a familiar spot. Struggle to limit opposing running backs, and third downs will become more difficult.
Free-agent additions never guarantee success. They do, though, offer a window into a team’s thoughts. Signing Allen and Hargrave signals Flores’ belief: Defenses that anchor teams must change and evolve, no matter how dominant they were the year or two before.
(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)
