The New Look Vikings Defense Is Not A Mirage
Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
Flashback to 2022. The Vikings just wrapped up a 13-4 record to earn a home playoff game in the Wild Card round. Their opponent was the New York Giants, who finished the season 9-7-1 under their first-year head coach Brian Daboll, who would be named AP NFL Coach of the Year just weeks later.
It was the Vikings in the playoffs; you know what happened. Minnesota lost 31-24, a game that served as a cruel punchline to their overachieving season. The Vikings were historically excellent in close games all year, going 11-0 in one-score contests… until their postseason loss.
Casual Vikings fans may have viewed the season as a disappointment but as Denny Green famously put it, “They are who we thought they were.” The team entered the season with their own first-year head coach in Kevin O’Connell, and despite an impressive record, Minnesota’s shaky defense was ultimately (and predictably) their demise. No one who wasn’t caught up in the magic expected a team that finished 31st in total defense to go on a playoff run.
And sure enough, the football world got to see that the 13-4 record was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a mirage.
Now we’re sitting three days after Week 1 exorcized Minnesota’s demons against those same Giants. This time, their defense held Daboll, Daniel Jones, and company to just six points in a decisive win. It’s a perfect statement game to show just how far this version of the Vikings’ defense has come in a short two years.
Sunday was the first time since Week 15 in 2019 that the Vikings won by three scores (17 points or more). In contrast, the San Francisco Giants, Minnesota’s Week 2 opponent, have done it 22 times in that same span. The Vikings held the longest active streak of not blowing out their opponents before their 28-6 win.
Until Flores arrived last season, the Vikings had finished no better than 27th in total defense since 2020, which is a big reason for the team having to play so many close games in recent years. When you can’t prevent opponents from scoring, you can’t widen leads.
But despite playing a punchless Giants offense Sunday, this Vikings defense is not a mirage, and it will be the backbone to the team having greater chances for more decisive wins this season.
Flores took over the defense after the 2022 season, a switch that immediately helped the team go from 31st in total defense to 16th in 2023 with a similar cast of players. He instills discipline and is a detailed organizer who creates a foundation for players to execute his dynamic, complex schemes. The proof was in the pudding for a while last season, when between Weeks 4 and 14, the Vikings’ defense ranked #1 in defensive efficiency, despite not having the ideal personnel to fit Flores’ vision.
Flores is also masterful with player development. He transformed Josh Metellus from a special teams ace to a Swiss Army Knife of a disruptor that opposing offenses need to account for. Veterans Camryn Bynum, D.J. Wonnum, Jordan Hicks, Harrison Phillips, and future Hall of Famer Harrison Smith each saw bumps in their productivity, while undrafted rookie Ivan Pace Jr. became a staple in the middle.
Adding free agents Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman, and Stephon Gilmore now offers Flores more speed, length, and football IQ to utilize, which only enhances Flores’ versatile scheme. He will be able to deploy more “hawk” packages (with four edge rushers) that offer both pressure and flexibility in coverage.
We saw it when Van Ginkel registered a sack and a pick-six on Sunday while earning an elite 90.6 defensive PFF grade (11th in the NFL) and the best pass coverage grade in the league. Meanwhile, Greenard generated five pressures and rookie Dallas Turner had one sack on a perfectly executed stunt play.
Welcome to the NFL, Dallas Turner!
The @vikings rookie gets his first-career sack 💪
📺: #MINvsNYG on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/9KiwhxvE40— NFL (@NFL) September 8, 2024
Last season, the Vikings led the league in both zone coverage (69%) and blitz-rate (50.7%), which is an oxymoronic scheme for anyone but Flores. As head coach of the Miami Dolphins, his defenses ranked top-10 in man coverage, which showcases his innate play-calling ability and willingness to adapt to the strengths of his personnel.
Flores was last in the league by a wide margin last season in plays where he sent four rushes at 30.3% (the next closest was 45.5%), and his 19.1% rate of sending three-man rushes nearly doubled the second-place New Orleans Saints (9.5%). The man contains multitudes.
Now in Week 1, we saw an entirely different defensive look from the Vikings of last year. The team blitz rate was only 22.4% on Sunday, a far cry for a coordinator who relied so heavily on the blitz in 2023, and just the third time the Vikings have blitzed under 30% under Flores. But despite the lack of blitzes, the pass rush had an elite 36.7% pressure rate, with all five of their sacks coming with the four-man fronts Flores seemed to abandon last year.
This season, the early eye test shows that this version of the defense plays much faster after adding the versatile skill sets of Van Ginkel, Greenard, and more. Flores’ “mad scientist” creativity and fluidity in his scheming created mismatches all over the field, and should keep doing so as the season goes on. Expectations may be lower for the 2024 Vikings, but this defense showed that they aren’t a one-week mirage. They’ll be a unit to watch going forward.
Up Next