In Week 1, Brian Flores called an interesting game for the Minnesota Vikings defense, and it looked strong against an admittedly middling New York Giants offense. Minnesota’s run defense was also strong, but I will focus on how it performed against the pass.
The Vikings held Daniel Jones to 52% completion, 31% success rate, and a 4.8-yard average depth of target. He only threw past 10 yards nine times and completed four of those for 69 yards. Jones has his detractors, and rightfully so. However, Minnesota fans are all too familiar with what he can do at his best (see both matchups from 2022).
How did Brian Flores keep Jones uncomfortable throughout the season opener? And how much of that will be replicable against the San Francisco 49ers’ much stronger offense?
As I dug into the tape, I noticed Minnesota’s uncharacteristically low blitz rate. On passing downs, I charted a roughly 25% blitz rate. PFF calculated a 38% blitz rate, and Pro Football Reference calculated a 24.5% blitz rate. I was more in line with the latter. While that is a significant amount of blitzing for most teams, we saw games last season where Flores blitzed 80% of the time.
That could bode well for Minnesota if they can remain sound on the back end, because Brock Purdy has been fantastic against the blitz. The key will be how the Vikings disguise their coverages more so than how they disguise their blitzes. That’s something Flores and the defense consistently did well in Week 1. We did see plenty of B-Flo’s trademark 6-0 and 7-0 fronts (six or seven defenders mugging the line of scrimmage pre-snap), but the heat seldom came.
Instead, the defense would rotate into a more standard coverage (often Cover 2) after the snap — and they did this in different ways. Cam Bynum spent most of his time on “the roof,” while Harrison Smith and Josh Metellus were often the cruxes of the disguise. Harrison Smith would roll from near the line of scrimmage to a deep half-zone. Metellus rotated from the A-gap or Will linebacker to a deep half zone. Metellus occasionally fell into the deep middle from Mike linebacker to finish the snap in Tampa 2 coverage.
The Vikings showed many single-high safety looks pre-snap, insinuating Cover 1 or Cover 3, but remained in single-high coverage less than 20% of the time. When the Vikings went into man coverage, it was often Cover 2 man, and I did not see one “zero-blitz” call (man coverage with no safety help).
The Vikings must continue to show heavy boxes pre-snap against San Francisco, which boasts a much more foreboding run game. Going into the 49ers game, Minnesota’s reliance on Cover 2 concerns me, regardless of how they got there.
If there’s one thing we can be sure of with Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers, it’s that they will attack the middle of the field with a ton of in-breaking routes. Even with how well Minnesota’s defense played against New York, there were some missed opportunities on drag/shallow cross routes where Jones missed open receivers.
Ivan Pace Jr., Blake Cashman, Metellus, and Smith’s ability to cover ground laterally at the second level of the defense was most striking to me in Minnesota’s Week 1 tape. Pace and Cashman were quick to the flats to smother checkdowns and quick outs. Early in the game, Metellus made a beautiful play from his middle hook zone to break up a pass on a stick concept outside the hashes.
The most fascinating aspect of this game will be how Shanahan and Flores work the chess board against each other to create advantages. While the Vikings did a good job taking away the middle of the field last week, Shanahan’s approach to these concepts could cause some issues for Minnesota.
With Christian McCaffrey ruled out for Sunday’s game, we should see plenty of Deebo Samuel running his routes out of the backfield, where it’s likely Metellus will often have his hands full. The Vikings must use seamless defensive communication to combat San Francisco’s pre-snap motion.
The 49ers will often motion players across the formation into or out of a bunch (three-man) or “stack” (two-man) to buy themselves a split-second advantage as the defense communicates assignments. The defense did a great job sorting out a bunch formation out of Cover 2 man in the low red zone against the Giants, but they’ll have to stay sharp all game against San Francisco. We saw these types of setups frequently in their season opener against the other New York team.
Flores was comfortable leaving either Stephon Gilmore or Byron Murphy Jr. one on one with New York’s rookie No. 1 receiver, Malik Nabers, even showing some MEG (man everywhere he goes) with zone coverage to the rest of the field. I anticipate a similar treatment for Brandon Aiyuk, their one true downfield prototypical receiver, so long as they can provide safety help.
The rest of their offensive weapons do most of their damage in the short and intermediate of the field. George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Kyle Juszczyk, and Jauan Jennings are all massive threats over the middle. I will be most closely watching Cashman, Pace Jr., and Metellus on Sunday to see if they’re physically and, more importantly, mentally up to the task against one of the most well-oiled machines in the NFL.
