The Minnesota Vikings’ defense was one of the positives in a disappointing year. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores elevated a unit that ranked 31st in total defense in 2022 to 16th last season. It was a big reason why the Vikings won seven games despite Kirk Cousins’s season-ending injury.
But while the Vikings made several gains on defense, their pass rush needed to be solved. Danielle Hunter is a potential free agent, so Minnesota needed to find a way to create multiple sources of pressure in Flores’ defense. The Vikings took a solid first step by signing Jonathan Greenard.
Greenard is a virtual unknown to Vikings fans but had a solid track record of production with the Houston Texans. Head coach DeMeco Ryans, 26, unleashed Greenard, 26, who finished the year with 12.5 sacks. Greenard’s emergence was a crucial reason for Houston’s transformation from one of the league’s worst teams to AFC South champions. He also gives the Vikings what they need to fix their pass rush.
According to Pro Football Reference, the Vikings had the NFL’s highest blitz rate at 51.5% but ranked 15th by generating pressure on 21.9% of their passing snaps. An even bigger problem was that most of that production came from Danielle Hunter.
According to Pro Football Focus, Hunter had 80 of Minnesota’s 293 quarterback pressures (27%) and 16.5 of their 43 sacks (39%) last season. With Hunter being the lone source of production, teams loaded up to stop him, leaving a yeoman’s group of defensive linemen and a roulette wheel of edge rushers trying to pick up the slack.
Greenard should help solve the problem, but he could be an effective player even if Hunter leaves in free agency. Greenard ranked sixth in ESPN’s pass-rush win-rate metric, winning his matchup 22% of the time in one-on-ones and 19% of his matchups against double teams.
PFF’s assessment wasn’t as generous as ESPN’s, but Greenard’s 12.4% win rate still ranked 46th among 118 qualifiers last season. By comparison, Hunter didn’t rank in the top 20 of ESPN’s pass-rush rankings but ranked 23rd in PFF’s database with a 15.7% win rate last season.
While Hunter generated his production in a scheme with the league’s top blitz rate, Greenard’s came from a team that routinely got to the quarterback. Pro Football Reference charted the Texans with the fifth-lowest blitz rate at 21%, but Houston still managed a 25.7% pressure rate, fifth in the NFL.
Ryan’s scheme could be a big reason for Greenard’s increased production, but much of Minnesota’s success was predicated on Flores’ scheme. If Flores can get the same production out of Greenard that he did out of Hunter, that’s a major win, considering the circumstances around each player.
Hunter continues to be one of the NFL’s top edge rushers. However, at age 30, it’s fair to wonder how long that will be the case. While trading Chris Doleman burned the Vikings in the 1990s, he was an outlier and didn’t have Hunter’s injury history. Hunter has been productive after missing the 2020 season with a neck injury and the second half of the 2021 season with a torn pectoral. But both injuries should give anyone pause before giving him a nine-figure contract.
While Hunter is better against the run than Greenard was in Houston, the positives outweigh the negatives. At age 26, Greenard is four years younger than Hunter and might be just as productive under Flores’ guidance. Greenard also comes at a cheaper rate with a four-year, $76 million contract just south of the $20 million the Vikings paid Hunter last season.
The Vikings could still bring Hunter back. They could use the money they were saving for Christian Wilkins on Hunter. However, Minnesota has also used some of that money to add more players who can generate pressure.
They added edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel as a complementary piece, but ESPN and PFF charted him with a pass-rush win rate of 18%. That rate ranks 20th in ESPN’s rankings and ninth in PFF’s database.
Fellow free-agent signing Blake Cashman also has a knack for creating pressure, ranking 26th in pass-rush win rate (11.1%) in PFF’s database last season. With Ivan Pace Jr. also ranking second among linebackers with a 21.7% pass-rush win rate, the Vikings could have Greenard and Van Ginkel on the edges with Cashman and Pace in the middle.
With the possibility of a draft pick or free-agent signing on the interior, the Vikings may be able to create more pressure next season. And the best part? They might be able to do it without blitzing. It’s an approach that may tug at the heartstrings if Hunter leaves in free agency, but it can help the Vikings defense take another step forward in their second year under Brian Flores.
