These days, NFL teams, particularly the Minnesota Vikings, use the preseason to evaluate fringe roster players rather than drill plays or try out unique play calls. With no starters in the game, calling some of the special plays that you have cooked up over the offseason would only serve to tip your hand to the opponent more than it would help your team improve the play’s execution.
The above usually leads to vanilla offensive and defensive playcalling in the preseason. However, it’s no secret to the NFL world that Vikings’ DC Brian Flores loves to blitz. His Miami Dolphins blitzed at a top-five rate in 2020 and led the league with a 38% blitz rate in 2021, per Sports Info Solutions. The team ran the blitz a number of times in the first couple of preseason games, but they didn’t get too exotic. Most “blitzes” were plays with five down defensive linemen, with all of the players being more useful rushing the passer than in coverage.
However, on the Vikings’ first drive against the Arizona Cardinals in preseason Week 3, Flores gave a sample of his most exciting blitz. The result was this Jay Ward strip sack:
The blitz above is called “Bengal Hawk.” Bengal, the formation, puts all non-coverage players on the line of scrimmage, threatening blitz, and has the coverage players in off-man coverage. Hawk tells all players who aren’t in man coverage to blitz. If the player you’re supposed to cover stays in to block (in this case the RB), then you blitz.
Flores didn’t given anything away by running this blitz in the preseason. The entire league already knows that he runs it. Famously, he ran this exact blitz 35 times in a game against the Baltimore Ravens, shutting down the Lamar Jackson-led offense in a Thursday night win.
How the Vikings execute on this play call will likely help define how well their defense plays in 2023. It’s a critical component of Flores’ defense, and the aggression of sending the house is held in check by playing off-man coverage. This piece will examine the rules of the blitz in detail.
Unlike other Flores blitzes, which consistently use stunts, the Bengal Hawk blitz asks each rusher to take the shortest possible path to the QB. Every rusher is in a gap, and rushes that gap. Look at the rush lanes for the Vikings below:
Just by a simple count, you can see that Arizona’s offense has a problem. They don’t have enough players blocking (5 OL + 1 RB) to match the number of players the Vikings are sending on the blitz (7). That means that they will have to leave a blitzer unblocked. As an offense, the best way to block this is to leave the player who is furthest from the QB, in this case Jay Ward, unblocked.
To block this up, the Cardinals use a slide protection. This has LT on an island against Benton Whitley, and the RG over slides to block the player on their right. The running back is responsible for coming across the formation to block Troy Reeder:
With the blitz sending more than the offense can block, the free rusher is the QB’s responsibility to block. He either needs to evade the defender in the pocket or get the ball out before the rusher can get to him, known as a hot throw.
What prevents QB Clayton Tune from getting the ball out quickly? There are two answers: the situation (third-and-six) and the coverage the Vikings are playing (off-man). Let’s take a closer look at the second. In the screenshot below, you can see Minnesota’s defenders playing far off their opponents, which is not typical for a zero blitz. The exception is Andrew Booth at the bottom, who bails out of his press look at the snap, which functions like off-man.
All the Vikings need to do is tackle a Cardinal before he gets to the red dashed line above. If the QB goes for a hot route, it will almost certainly have to be short of the sticks, and the defenders will rally to tackle that player.
That leads to another key difference with this coverage. While it is off-man, the DBs are instructed to keep their eyes on the QB, which is a zone principle. The reason they can do this is the guaranteed unblocked rusher, which means the QB needs to throw the ball immediately. Look at this still from the top of Tune’s drop, and see all of Minnesota’s DBs’ helmets facing the QB.
Tune is about the get hit in this screenshot, and the only receiver who isn’t covered is No. 83, Greg Dortch, who is at the 24-yard line. Note that the first-down marker is at the 27. Even Dortch has slot CB Jaylin Williams behind him, staring directly at Tune, waiting to rally and tackle.
What about a quick slant or drag route to allow a WR to run away from the guy covering him? Would that be a good answer to this blitz? Or a chip/release from the RB to put him in space, kind of like a screen?
The final wrinkle to this blitz accounts for those two easy solutions. This blitz is a “tag” pressure. It’s a kind of simulated pressure, but it’s more convincing than a player showing blitz and immediately dropping into coverage. With a tag pressure, the defender rushes until he touches the blocker in front of him, confirming that this player needs to be used to block him, before dropping into coverage. Focus on T.J. Smith and Troy Dye, over the C and RG, on the clip below:
Tagging the blocker and then dropping provides a surprise advantage to this quick-developing play. If either player dropped immediately, the line would have been able to push the blocking out to their right — as you can see the RG start to help the RT. However, by the time Dye and Smith start to drop, Jay Ward has already gotten more depth than the RT, so the line pushing out would be futile at this point.
The second benefit comes if the QB gets the ball out. With all out blitzes, hot throws typically go quick over the middle of the field. Dye and Smith dropping puts them exactly where many throws would go, and they’re additional players who can help rally and tackle in the case of a slant. If the RB were to leak out as I posited above, both player are available to make the tackle short of the sticks.
Watching the play fully develop, you can see that there’s no throw that makes sense for the QB:
Finally, take a look at the rush in all of its glory from the end-zone angle. I mentioned above that the offense protects this play to leave the player with the longest path to the QB unblocked. In this case, that’s Ward. To some extent, that benefits the Vikings, because Ward, a DB, is faster than the other LBs and DL who are blitzing. Ward’s impressive speed allows him to get to the QB as soon as Tune reaches the top of his drop:
Hopefully you’ll now be able to call this blitz out when the Vikings run it during the season. Now, imagine it’s Harrison Smith lining up with a free rush at the QB.
