No structure lasts without a sturdy foundation.
For any successful defense, past or present, it all starts up front. For the 2024 Minnesota Vikings, it’s no different. Jonathan Greenard leads the league in QB pressures, and Andrew Van Ginkel has nine sacks and two pick-sixes. However, the true strength of Minnesota’s front seven comes from their varied skillsets and holistic effort.
Minnesota’s front office has assembled a group of highly versatile defenders who all excel in specific areas. Brian Flores’ greatest strength as a defensive coordinator is his commitment to putting his players in the best position to succeed.
At his introductory press conference, a reporter asked if he would run a 3-4 or a 4-3 defense.
“Who are we playing?” he asked.
Flores deploys his players as strategically as anyone in the league. Now that we have a large enough sample size, we can assess each player’s specific role within the defense. Over the first 13 games, 11 players across the front seven have played over 20% of defensive snaps.
That group consists of:
- Harrison Phillips, Jonathan Bullard, and Jerry Tillery on the interior
- Greenard, Van Ginkel, Patrick Jones II, Dallas Turner, and Jihad Ward on the edge
- And Ivan Pace Jr, Blake Cashman, and Josh Metellus at linebacker
- Ancillary players like Taki Taimani, Kamu Grugier-Hill, and recently Jalen Redmond contribute notable snaps
Stopping the Run
Flores positions these players on the field based on the game situation and the personnel it calls for. On early downs or traditional “running downs” against heavier offensive packages (12-, 13-, or 21-personnel), the Vikings’ base defense (four defensive backs) often includes five- or six-man fronts consisting of a combination of three to four interior defensive linemen and two to three edge defenders.
One linebacker lines up behind the six-man fronts and two behind the five-man fronts, which looks like a conventional 3-4 defense. Flattening out the front this way helps the defense eliminate double teams from the offensive line and create penetration against one-on-ones in the run game. That has been a major key to Minnesota’s league-leading run defense.
Minnesota’s defense is fourth in yards per run play allowed, 11th in stuff rate, fourth in yards before contact per carry, and first in EPA per rush allowed. That’s all without a lot of above-average size in the middle. Phillips is the de facto nose tackle. As great as he is, Phillips is one of the smaller nose tackles in the NFL and can occasionally struggle to hold up against double teams. But again, because of the way Flores concocts his scheme, he never puts Phillips in that position without purpose.
Bullard has quietly been one of the league’s better run defenders this season and can even push the pocket against the pass when he needs to. Since Redmond took the other starting interior job from Tillery last week, we may even see the run defense improve. Redmond is an explosive penetrating 3-technique with a knack for creating negative plays. Tillery has been solid in his role this season, but the Vikings may have stumbled into another true disruptor on the defensive side of the ball.
The edge players are just as integral to the run defense as the interior defenders. Whether setting the front side edge or pursuing from the backside, Minnesota’s edge defenders have been tenacious this season. Van Ginkel leads the team with 43 defensive stops.
Greenard, Van Ginkel, and Jones have had flashy sacks and pressures. However, they’ve been just as valuable on running downs, helping to put themselves in a position to pin their ears back and rush the passer later in the series.
That’s the premise of Flores’ defense this year. Win on early downs and get the offense into second- and third-and-longs. He blitzes more often on first and second down than against true passing situations on third. Once Flores sets the trap, he knows just how to spring it.
Rushing the Passer
Just as Flores loads up the box and the line of scrimmage to suffocate the run on early downs, he favors the opposite extreme in passing situations. The Vikings lead the league in Dime (six defensive backs) personnel rate. Part of this can result from Metellus, a nominal safety, taking nearly half his snaps at linebacker this season, but it’s a worthwhile anecdote.
“His run fits are to a linebacker standard,” Flores said of Metellus.
That’s high praise for a 205 lb. football player. When the defense is fully healthy, most of Metellus’ snaps in the box come on third down, where he is both a talented blitzer and a strong coverage player. The threat of either from Metellus or many others in the front seven is crucial to the effective disguise of passing downs.
Flores is also a proponent of the “NASCAR Front” Steve Spagnuolo popularized with the New York Giants in the early 2010s. The NASCAR front features four edge rushers and gets its name from how much speed it puts on the field. That allows a combination of Greenard, Van Ginkel, Jones, Turner, and Jihad Ward to terrorize offensive lines. Ward sees nearly half of his action on third down, and Flores kicks him and Jones inside in these packages.
He’s spent 92.5% of his snaps inside the tackle and has logged a respectable 9.6% pressure rate when aligned inside. Jones has been a pleasant surprise this year from a pass-rush production standpoint, with a pressure rate of 9.9% to go with a career-high seven sacks. That said, these are the dirty-work guys. If there is a stunt, one of these guys is usually assigned to occupy multiple blockers to allow a free run or one-on-one for the looper.
Van Ginkel and Greenard do an immaculate job feigning the blitz, only to spot drop into coverage. Van Ginkel got his pick-six against Aaron Rodgers doing just that. He also has five pass deflections this season, some of which have come at the line. The rest have come when poor, misguided souls think they can throw a receiver screen to his side of the field.
These two lead all front seven players in snap share, with good reason. They argue for being a top-three edge duo in the league this year, both in their first season with the team.
The cherry on top of this variability up front is that Minnesota’s off-ball linebackers are fantastic pass-rushers. It was Pace’s foremost skill coming out of college after he led all college linebackers in pressures and sacks. Flores has not been hesitant to tap into that skill set.
Pace looks like he was just ejected from the barrel of a Desert Eagle every time he’s sent on a blitz, careening off of flailing guards and flat-footed running backs on his way to disrupt the quarterback. Quarterback of the defense Cashman has shown some real pass-rush chops this season while also being an extremely reliable coverage player at the second level.
He’s pressured the quarterback nine times on only 39 pass rushes, for a whopping 23.1% pressure rate. The speed at the second level between these two is palpable, and when they blitz, it jumps off the screen.
The collection of players Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Co. have assembled over the last few offseasons is a deadly arsenal, even if some of those players weren’t flashy acquisitions at the time. Flores has partnered and collaborated with the front office to create the defense he envisioned, and what we’re seeing this season is pretty close to a finished product.
They could use an upgrade here and there, but the ensemble in the front seven is masterfully crafted to exceed the sum of its parts. Everyone has a role, but nearly all of the players are portable. Everyone blitzes, everyone drops, everyone stops the run.
There is an intense buy-in from all of Flores’ chess pieces. If the Vikings can get Pace healthy and avoid major injuries elsewhere, they have all the pieces necessary to go on a run in the playoffs. I’d trust Flores as much as just about any coordinator in the league to devise a win-or-go-home game plan against even the most formidable contenders.
All he needs to know is: Who are we playing?
