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Kevin Seifert, ESPN Staff Writer
EAGAN, Minn. — The NFL mock draft industry has triangulated a top need for the Minnesota Vikings with their spot at the No. 11 overall pick.
ESPN’s Jordan Reid connected the Vikings with Illinois defensive tackle Jer’Zhan Newton in his most recent mock, while the NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah recently selected Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II for them.
Matching them with a defensive tackle makes sense in the abstract, but it should come with a disclaimer. What if we told you the Vikings didn’t use defensive linemen, at least in the conventional sense, during their first season with defensive coordinator Brian Flores?
Flores didn’t merely concoct a new NFL scheme during the 2023 season, nor did he simply turn safety Josh Metellus into a multi-positional force. He dispatched with conventional personnel usage across the board, in some cases at historic rates, in an attempt to reverse the team’s years-long defensive slide. After an up-and-down season, the Vikings finished No. 17 in defensive efficiency and No. 19 in defensive EPA.
Flores’ position-agnostic approach manifested most along the interior defensive line, a spot the Vikings have historically filled with elite-level playmakers from Alan Page to Keith Millard to John Randle to Kevin Williams. In 2023, however, the Vikings played more snaps without a defensive lineman on the field (180) than any team since at least 2006, when ESPN Stats & Information started tracking it. They played another 143 snaps with one defensive lineman on the field. In other words, they had one or fewer defensive linemen on the field for roughly one-third of their total defensive plays, also a league-high since at least 2006.
Because their base defense was classified as a 3-4, their edge pass rushers were recorded as linebackers even though their assignments was similar to 4-3 defensive ends. In either case, however, the data shows low usage of traditional interior defenders. The Vikings had three or more defensive lineman on the field for only 386 snaps, third-fewest in the league. Only two Vikings defensive linemen — Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard — finished among the NFL’s top 195 defensive linemen for season snap counts.
It’s fair to ask wonder whether Flores molded his approach at least in part to cover for personnel shortcomings. But in an interview during the season, he made clear that he does not feel beholden to tradition when it comes to player deployment.
“I see spots on the field,” Flores said. “I don’t necessarily see, ‘That’s got to be a D-lineman or that’s got to be a linebacker.'”
Even before installing the specifics of the scheme last spring, in fact, the Vikings taught multi-positional techniques to every defensive player.
“Everyone is just an ‘X’ on the field,” defensive backs coach/pass game coordinator Daronte Jones said. “Everyone has to learn the same techniques. Everyone has to learn how to be a flat dropper, how to be a curl-flat dropper, how to be a hook dropper. Everyone. You never know if a defensive lineman is going to be in that position, or a linebacker, or a safety or a corner for that matter. So we taught techniques, and when you teach techniques, guys aren’t necessarily interchangeable, but it makes it a little less thought-provoking for them to do those things.”
The Vikings’ personnel decisions last season supported the idea they would deemphasize the defensive line, at least for 2023. They did not re-sign defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson, who received a four-year deal worth $57 million from the Cleveland Browns, and replaced him with veteran free agent Dean Lowry at a much lower cost ($8.5 million over two years). They drafted one defensive tackle, LSU’s Jaquelin Roy in the fifth round, but brought him along slowly.
When the regular season arrived, their plan was to use Lowry, Phillips and Bullard as their top linemen. Lowry suffered a season-ending pectoral injury in Week 9, leading them to shrink their rotation further. Phillips finished the season with 855 snaps, by far his career high, while Bullard played 655, besting his previous career high by more than 200 snaps.
During an in-season interview, Phillips said it had been apparent from the start of the defense’s installation that linemen weren’t likely to be the playmakers of Flores’ scheme.
“My initial thoughts selfishly were not super high about this,” Phillips said. “It was like, ‘Dang, the way it’s being described is you’re an edge setter, you’re a cutback player. It seemed like there was not going to be a lot of production through the system.'”
Phillips termed the scheme a “very unselfish defense” for linemen. There would be times, he said, “where I know the ball carrier is coming this way and maybe I can make it [there to tackle him], but I’ve just got to stay front side and trust somebody else is going to make it backside.”
Phillips turned the additional playing time into a career high of 44 solo tackles, and another 48 he assisted on, but only two were behind the line of scrimmage. In the meantime, the Vikings were trying to feature what they believed was a deep group of outside linebackers. Even with starter Marcus Davenport out for the most of the season because of injuries, they had five linebackers on the field for 161 snaps, 10 times the NFL average and second-most in the league. Outside linebacker Pat Jones II lined up at defensive tackle for 192 snaps — the fourth-highest count at that position on the team.
The Vikings also had the second-most snaps this season with six defensive backs on the field, and of their top 11 defensive snap counts for the season, five were defensive backs and four were linebackers.
Flores’ creativity serves as a foundation for future projections — and a signal to be cautious. It probably wouldn’t make sense for the Vikings to use their top draft choice on a position that is asked to funnel the playmaking to others — if it’s on the field at all. But if Flores could dispatch with convention so thoroughly in 2023, we shouldn’t make any assumptions about 2024. Stay tuned.