The Minnesota Vikings have reduced their initial roster to 53. While they still could make some waiver moves before the season opener, the initial 53-man roster gives us a glimpse into what the coaching staff values going into the 2024 season. Everything starts up front in the NFL, and that’s where this defense’s most compelling storylines lie.
There has been much more turnover on the defense than on the offense, and I think there is a lot more nuance in the personnel choices on the defensive front than in the secondary. The Vikings just needed bodies at cornerback, so they’ve cobbled together this group with one-year rentals to combat the unit’s injuries and disappointments.
Of the 11 players the Vikings kept along the defensive line, only three members of last year’s squad remain: Harrison Phillips, Jonathan Bullard, and Patrick Jones II. I’m sure the team would have loved to have kept Danielle Hunter, but the collection of players with which they’ve replaced him should improve the overall pass rush. Last year, due to the personnel across the defense, Brian Flores needed to go to extremes to design a quality unit.
His team sent three-, five-, six-, and seven-man pressures more often than any team in the league. They ran man coverage at a league-low rate of 7% of the time — (seven!) — across all snaps. He didn’t have the horses in the secondary to hold up one-on-one. On third downs, he called cover 0 over 18% of the time, three times as often as any other defense in the league. It was the highest blitz rate (50.7%) that the league has seen in the last decade.
As fun and exciting as this die-by-the-sword defense style was last season, it isn’t sustainable. However, the Vikings can replicate some elements, and the personnel choices will facilitate a more balanced attack. Flores’ blitz was Mariano Rivera’s cutter in 2023. Old reliable. But the greatest closer of all time never had to go nine innings. Meanwhile, in the final six games last season — the third time through the lineup, if you will — showed us how teams can adjust to Flores’ helter-skelter approach.
Last season, the sap was not worth the tap on five- and six-man pressures; they were just 21st in pressure rate on such calls. Mugging the defensive line with six or seven players on just about every passing down was enough to disguise where the blitz came from. However, Flores couldn’t access enough different play calls to throw offenses off the scent by the end of the year.
Hunter was the only pass-rusher holding things together last season, and that will not be the case in 2024. While they were both solid run defenders, Phillips finished dead last among qualified players in pass rush win rate, and Jonathan Bullard finished with just a 2.8% pressure rate. Pat Jones II and D.J. Wonnum took good pursuit angles and were good play-finishers, but neither drew enough attention or won quickly enough to aid the overall pass rush. The team was 18th overall in pass-rush win rate mainly due to pressures generated by safeties Josh Metellus and Harrison Smith, and linebackers Jordan Hicks and Ivan Pace Jr.
That all changes following a good offseason for Minnesota’s defensive front. The group went from having one ace in Hunter to having three promising individual pass-rushers who can win one-on-ones and generate pressure across the front. The front now boasts several versatile skillsets. On cut day, Minnesota kept five edge rushers (Van Ginkel, Turner, Greenard, Jones, Jihad Ward) and six interior defensive linemen (Phillips, Bullard, Jerry Tillery, Levi Drake Rodriguez, Taki Taimani, Jalen Redmond), many of whom provide much more versatility on an individual level. Together, it’s a group that could perform better than the sum of its parts.
Newcomers Andrew Van Ginkel (20th) and Jonathan Greenard (sixth) finished last season in the top 20 in pass-rush win rate. In particular, Van Ginkel was one of the better rushers in the league. He finished with 53 total pressures on 303 pass-rush snaps — a 17.5% pressure rate. AVG has played under Flores in Miami, and B-Flo knows how many ways he can deploy Van Ginkel.
Between Van Ginkel and rookie Dallas Turner, he has two nominal edge rushers who can competently drop into hook zones or the flats out of his trademark pressure looks due to their speed and instinct. Taimani, Tillery, Rodriquez, and Redmond are more adequate interior pass rushers than their predecessors. Some, if not all, of these guys should see the field on late downs in passing situations.
If we see Flores’ same formula this season, despite teams having more tape to study, it will be more effective than last season due to personnel alone. However, the personnel will provide Flores with a more diverse set of viable pressure calls and coverage calls. There will be less desperation to shorten opposing quarterbacks’ time to throw if he is able to keep seven players in coverage and generate ample pressure with four.
The 2023 defense didn’t allow many big plays. However, when the pressure didn’t affect the quarterback, blitzes often vacated huge patches of uncovered grass, forcing defensive backs to close gaps and tackle in space consistently.
Overall, the personnel along the defensive front is better suited to generate pressure and effectively drop into coverage. Minnesota’s front office has done a great job of adding as many “pitches” to Flores’ arsenal in the hopes that he can mad scientist his way to an even better defense in 2024. The pressure call and the coverage behind it must marry seamlessly at the NFL level, so the true ceiling of this defense depends on how well the mercenary secondary can do its part.
