Brian Flores Hit The Jackpot With Joint Practices
Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
The Minnesota Vikings will play the Cleveland Browns next Saturday for their second preseason game. The key matchup won’t happen on Saturday, however. Instead, we’ll see the Vikings square off against Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland starting offense in two joint practices that will take place this week.
At first glance, that takes a bit of the juice away from the proceedings. Lining up on Saturday against Jameis Winston and Dorian Thompson-Robinson just isn’t gonna hit the same. But while Watson won’t get exposed to the actual pre-season contest, he will receive a ton of reps in these joint practices.
“[Watson will] get the vast majority of reps [with him] not playing in the game Saturday,” confirmed Browns coach (and former Vikings coordinator) Kevin Stefanski on Sunday. “So, he’ll get his work done versus them in a controlled setting.”
But just because the joint practices will be controlled, doesn’t mean there won’t be an intensity in these match-ups. “This week is going to hard. It’s going to be physical; it’s going to tax you mentally, physically, those type of things,” Stefanski explained. “It’s going to be our starters versus their starters.”
If you’re Brian Flores… jackpot.
This is the preseason, and teams are loathe to pull out their entire bag of trips in meaningless games. Showing all the cards when 31 other teams can easily get your stuff on tape just isn’t best practice in the preseason. So while Flores got to run a vanilla defense in last weekend’s contest against the Las Vegas Raiders, he’ll get a bit more room to let his defense run wild this week.
Flores needs to see those kinds of hard, but fairly private reps to get a feel for the tweaks he’s planning to implement in 2024. Last year, he got this defense through the season largely on heavy blitzing, Danielle Hunter, Harrison Smith, and Ivan Pace, Jr. having a breakout. This offseason, Minnesota had the spending money to get Flores some of his preferred ingredients. While Hunter defected to the Houston Texans, the Vikings got Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Dallas Turner… and that’s just the pass-rushing upgrades.
With the growth of players like Pace and Josh Mettellus, among others, Flores has the tools to put a more dynamic defense on the field than what we saw last year. The question is whether they’ll have the cohesion (or the cornerbacks) to make an impact from Weeks 1 through 17.
While a preseason contest can give Minnesota some information and build confidence for the defense (congrats to Turner on his first NFL sack, by the way), these practices are probably going to be more important than any of Minnesota’s three August games. Instead of testing the defense against a second-team offense for much of the first half, they get to do it against top-tier talent.
Better, even: Top-tier talent that has something on the line. Stakes aren’t usually high in August, but Cleveland’s starters have a lot of reason to take these practices incredibly seriously. For one, there’s Watson, who has played just 12 games since the 2020 season and has a passer rating in the low 80s in his two seasons in Cleveland. More than any other quarterback in the NFL, he needs game time, and he needs to look good to build momentum into the season.
Cleveland will also want to show off their new-look passing game. Amari Cooper (for as long as Brandon Aiyuk wants to not live in Cleveland, anyway) and Elijah Moore are returning from last season. However, the Browns brought in Jerry Jeudy to give them a legitimate 1-2-3 punch at receiver. Watson has chemistry with Cooper, but they’ll want to test what he can do with three threatening wideouts and David Njoku at his disposal.
Combine that with a very good offensive line, and Cleveland is going to test Minnesota in the exact ways they need. Can Flores orchestrate his new-look blitzers to throw down against high-end blockers trying their hardest? How will the secondary hold up against a supposed franchise quarterback and a scary receiver group?
Stefanski is clear that these practices are going to be crucial to get this team going out of the gate strong. “[Getting] really good, solid work in against a good football team, a well-coached football team, it’s very important to get this team ready for Week 1.” You can bet the guy calling plays on the other side of the ball thinks the same thing.
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