Vikings

Brian Flores' Defense, Part 2: Aggression

Phot Credit: Jim Rassol, The Palm via USA TODAY Sports

Part 1 of this series covers the personnel that Brian Flores uses in his defenses. It can be found here.

In his opening press conference, Brian Flores repeatedly mentioned aggression as a core tenant in his defense. This shows in his willingness to blitz. The Dolphins led the league in 2021 with a 38% blitz rate, and were top five in 2020.

Flores will send blitzers from any position, at seemingly any time. Linebackers, safeties, and corners will all be sent on blitzes. He loves to mug LBs and DBs up on the line of scrimmage, threatening the blitz, and will do everything from sending the house to dropping eight players in coverage from those alignments. With so many bodies on the line, Flores hopes to create advantageous matchups for his skilled pass rushers — think Za’Darius Smith lined up against a C or G last season, to create a free runner by having one more player than the offense can block, and also help smaller rushers win matchups by running a number of stunts in hopes of getting a free rusher. Lets explore.

Stunts

A stunt, also known as an “exchange” or a “game,” is a technique for playing defensive line where defenders swap responsibilities, hoping to confuse the offensive linemen. One (or more than one) player will go first and be the pick player, or the “crasher.” That player rushes aggressively towards a lineman one gap over, so for example a defensive end, lined up over a tackle would run towards a guard. Then the player over that guard, known as the “looper,” will take a step towards his blocker before backing off and looping around to where the crasher started. The hope is that the lineman the crasher was originally lined up against will follow him, and that he will not be able to recover in time to block the looper, who is now his responsibility. The looper stepping towards a lineman before backing off could also leave that player off guard and in bad position to block the crasher who is rushing towards him. The diagrams below will detail how stunts are run in the Flores defense.

Let’s take a look at an example of a stunt in the Flores playbook that emphasizes the “Xs on a chalkboard” mentality called “Ram.” Ram has an end and tackle to one side crash down the line of scrimmage, while the player over the nose loops around, hoping to become a free rusher. Here is a diagram:

Here is an example of the stunt being run from the front shown above:

The play below is the same Ram call, but with an amoeba front (Flores calls this pre-snap movement “Viking”) moving around before the snap to try to confuse the offense. You can see that the players end up having a similar rush pattern, but the starting point is different to try to confuse the offense.

Flores has a number of stunts in his arsenal, and will often call multiple stunts on the same play. Stunts are an effective way to create free rushers for the defense, as they ask offensive linemen to communicate, and they can also help the run game when a team plays with a light box, because they will mess up offensive line blocking assignments. The “Ram” examples above illustrates how a stunt works on the field, and below you can see the diagrams of different stunts in the Flores defense. “Rt” indicates that the stunt is run by the right side of the DL (from the defense’s perspective), while “Lt” means it is run from the left side.

  • “Tank” or “Truck” is a stunt where the 0t and 3t to one side go first and crash into the G/C, respectively. The opposite 3t then loops around behind the stunt. The direction call is for which direction the looper goes to.
  • “Tex” or “Cold” is a stunt where the 0t goes first towards the direction call, and then that 3t loops around to attack the C.
  • “Hot” is the inverse of Cold, where the 3t goes first and the 0t loops. This is usually only run with an LB body at 0t.

  • A “Coffee House” stunt is an adjustment where the looping player will feign as if he is dropping back into coverage before rushing.
  • “Stab” is a stunt where the 0t and 5t exchange gaps. They both somewhat act as loopers, and go around the 3t, who has a straight rush.
  • “Keg” is a stunt where the 0t crashes the B gap to the direction call. The two 3ts will attack the A gap opposite of them.

  • “You” is a stunt where the 5t goes first, and the 3t loops around the outside.
  • “Me” is a stunt where the 3t goes first, and the 5t loops towards the inside.
  • “Flush” is a stunt where the 0t and 3t go first, and the 5t loops inside
  • Multiple stunts can be called in the same play. “TEX LT, YOU RT” means the 0t and 3t to the left will run a Tex stunt, while the 5t and 3t to the right will run a You stunt.
Blitz Looks

Flores brings a blitz heavy defense to Minnesota, and bases his blitz looks out of three primary looks: “Sub Odd” — a 5-0 front, “Charger” — a Double A Gap front, and “Bengal” — a Cover 0 look. Let’s take a look at each below:

Sub odd

Sub Odd is the front the Dolphins are using in the plays above. Flores has a multitude of different alignments that he can run out of this front, but it always features a player aligned 0t, two 3ts, and two 5ts. The defense will play Cover 1 out of this front. This is important, because it will allow the player who is aligned in man coverage against a TE or a RB to blitz using a “green dog” technique if the TE/RB stays in to block. Take a look at the front below:

Assuming the offense has both the TE and RB run routes, they have just five offensive linemen to block five potential rushers on the line of scrimmage. The point of this front is to put the offense in that situation. When offenses are faced with this, they will often call what’s known as “5-0” protection, which is a man protection where each offensive linemen is responsible for blocking the man in front of him. The 0t “straight up on” (i.e. directly in front of) the C makes it difficult for the line to half slide, where the C turns to one direction to help on that side of the line and get three blockers vs two rushers. Similarly, the offensive line can’t full slide, a technique where the five linemen block in the same direction, because that would leave the RB to block a defensive end body, a matchup that is considered a win for the defense.

So, in 5-0 protection, every offensive lineman is tasked with blocking the man directly in front of him. Because they are focused on the player across from them, they are not looking around for other pass rush threats like in slide protection. This means they are susceptible to stunts, which is the reason for the wide array of stunts available to the Flores defense in the section above. It all ties together.

Charger

The next front should look familiar, as it is an old Mike Zimmer favorite: the double A gap mug. The Belichick tree calls this front “Charger.” Here is a diagram:

There are a few variations on how to run this blitz, but the primary one is a simple center read. The rule is the player to the side the center turns to block drops into coverage, while the player opposite blitzes. Look at the play below. You can see that the C turns left at the snap, so No. 55 Jerome Baker drops into coverage, while No. 29 Brandon Jones blitzes.

The play above is a bluff, as the Dolphins only end up rushing four players. This is what’s known as a “simulated pressure.” The defense shows a blitz, knowing that the offense has to respond to be able to pick the blitz up. In this case, the offense keeps seven blockers in, and they are tasked with blocking just four rushers. This means that the defense has seven players in coverage, while the offense has just three players running routes, a big advantage for the defense. The play above still allowed a completion for a decent gain, but schematically the coverage had a big advantage. When a defense shows that it is willing to blitz, as Flores often does, the offense needs to respect that.

While the player that the C turns to in the Charger look will often back off into coverage, that is not always the case. NFL centers are very athletic, so sometimes they can recover and turn to the other direction when their first threat drops into coverage. This is now a common look in the NFL, and offenses are prepared for it. So, the Dolphins have a stunt based on this alignment:

A “pick” of the C from the diagram above is crashing on a stunt. The Mac and the $ will read which direction the C turns, and then the player he turns away from will crash into him, and the other will loop around. Take a look at this in action:

You can see the havoc this causes along the offensive line. While the C initially turns to his right, he sees the game and turns back to block Jones. However, with Baker looping around, both the C and RB react to that threat and stop blocking Jones, giving him a free path up the middle to the QB.

Bengal

Another interesting blitz look that Flores loves to run is the “Bengal” formation. This look puts all DL and LBs on the line of scrimmage, as well as an DB for every TE/RB in the backfield, in a Cover 0 look (more on Cover 0 later). Every player on the line then blitzes, except players who “peel” with RBs/TEs if they run routes rather than staying in to block. The idea is that the defense will always have one more rusher than the offense has blockers, so there will always be a free rusher that the QB has to account for. This should force a quick pass.

This blitz gained notoriety when the Dolphins unleashed it against the unique Baltimore Ravens’ offense to great effect in 2021. Brett Kollmann charted that they ran this same blitz an astonishing 34 times in the same game, stifling the Ravens’ offense in a 22-10 win.

In the first look above, you can see that there are seven players on the line of scrimmage, one more than the six (five OL + one RB) potential blockers that the offense has. In the play below, a TE is added to the mix, so No. 21 Eric Rowe (an S/CB hybrid player) moves directly in front of him. If the TE stays in to block, Rowe will blitz, but he will “peel” and cover him in man coverage if the TE releases into a route.

Here is the blitz in action:

The way the Jacksonville Jaguars call the protection, they leave Van Noy unblocked, and he has a free run at the QB. Gardner Minshew is “responsible” for Van Noy, which means that he needs to throw the ball before Van Noy can sack him. He tries a deep shot, but is unable to connect because the blitz rushed his process. An added note is that, like with the “Charger” front, the two players to the side that the C slides to are instructed to “Tag” their blockers and drop back into coverage. As you can see in the play above, Baker and Wilkins move forward at the snap only to drop back over the middle of the field. This takes away a potential quick throw over the middle to the TE. While they are not counted as part of the coverage from a defensive perspective, and every DB is responsible for their own man, these players help take away quick answers to the blitz look.

Blitzes are a strong feature of the Flores defense, but they also require strong coverage behind them. The next installment of this series will look at the types of coverages Flores runs, focusing on man coverage.

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