Strange: Vikings to Make a Game-Changing Move This Week to Fit Her Missing Piece

The Minnesota Vikings enter their Week 13 bye with a two-game losing run but remain in postseason contention. However, before they can even think about making the playoffs, Minnesota’s offense, particularly its rushing game, must be improved.

The Vikings released veteran running back Dalvin Cook in favor of Alexander Mattison during the offseason. So far, the outcomes have been disappointing. Mattison has 158 carries for 594 yards (a dismal 3.8 yards per attempt) and three fumbles.

The Vikings (6-6) rank 24th in the NFL in overall rushing yards (1,105), yards per attempt (3.9), rushing touchdowns (26), and rushing yards per game (92.1) after 12 games. The Vikings are averaging 95.7 running yards per game in 2023, down from 95.7 in 2022.

QB Joshua Dobbs – who didn’t join the team until the trade deadline Oct. 31 – leads the team in rushing scores with three touchdowns. Mattison, meanwhile, has no rushing touchdowns. Luckily, there is a viable solution to the team’s rushing woes: backup RB Ty Chandler.

The second-year runner has shown flashes this season and could provide a spark as a starter. In spot duty, the 5-foot-11, 204-pounder has 168 yards rushing on 37 attempts and a rushing TD. Significantly, he has zero fumbles and is averaging 4.5 yards per attempt, the highest mark on the team

In October, Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell praised Chandler, calling him a “nice change-of-pace” back.

Well, the “nice change-of-pace” back needs more carries. He should play on first and second down, with the heavier Mattison (5-foot-11, 215 pounds) the option on third down and at the goal line.

Either rookie Jaren Hall, journeyman Nick Mullens or Dobbs – who has struggled recently – will be the quarterback the rest of the season, so a reliable run game is vital.

Clearly, Mattison isn’t working as an every-down back. The Vikings have nothing to lose and everything to gain by handing the keys to Chandler.

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How adopting a collegiate defense has aided the Vikings’ comeback

Brian Flores joined the Minnesota Vikings as their defensive coordinator, he said at the time, because of the opportunity he saw for his own personal and professional growth. Only now are we finding out what he meant.

In his first season with the Vikings, Flores has achieved a rare feat: concocting a new NFL scheme with almost no one noticing. Flores revealed in a recent ESPN interview that he incorporated a version of the defense popularized at the college level by Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi, one that combines a six-man front with versions of zone coverage behind it.

NFL teams historically use man coverage behind loaded fronts, and no one ESPN reached out to could remember a defense that consistently did otherwise. The Vikings have capitalized on those unconventional foundations, added some of Flores’ exotic blitz theories and built one of the league’s most effective groups. Since the start of Week 4, when some rough early-season moments required significant fine-tuning, Flores’ defense has ranked as a top 5 defense, coinciding with the team winning six of their last nine games.

“You’re programmed to think that there’s these buckets of defenses,” safety Harrison Smith said. “Everybody has their own styles, but it’s like you’re only allowed to do certain things with 11 guys, and [Flores’ scheme] kind of breaks that in some senses. The rules of the game are just ingrained in you, even though they’re not rules. It’s just what we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking over the years. It turns out you can do more, and that’s been really fun to see.”

The scheme has fooled offenses, sometimes to comic levels. During a game last month in Atlanta, Vikings safety Josh Metellus heard a Falcons coach yelling at him. Over and over, the coach told Metellus he had decoded the Vikings’ scheme and knew what was coming.

“He was completely wrong every time he said it,” Metellus said. “Nobody understands what we’re doing.”

Defensive pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Daronte Jones, meanwhile, has suppressed smiles during pregame warmups when approached by opposing coaches. Several of them, Jones said, have offered sympathy for the amount of man coverage the Vikings had seemingly asked their defensive backs to play.

“And the truth,” Jones said, “is that we’re really not. Flo’s mind just works differently.”

The Vikings lead the NFL in frequency of zone coverage (69%), according to ESPN Stats & Information. They have also used their six-man front in ways rarely seen at the NFL level. Flores’ defense has the league’s highest rates — by a wide margin — in two philosophical opposites: blitzes and three-man rushes. They have more than twice as many six-man rushes as the next-most aggressive team, largely because Metellus and Smith have rushed the passer more than six times the NFL average for defensive backs, and they have utilized personnel groupings that complicate the blocking schemes of offenses and reduce the “menu” of plays or formations they can use.

This novel approach required a leap of faith from coach Kevin O’Connell, whose otherwise successful 2022 debut with the Vikings was tarnished by a passive defensive approach that former coordinator Ed Donatell refused to adjust. Flores hadn’t yet decided on the specifics of his scheme when O’Connell hired him Feb. 6, but the two agreed they wanted an exceptionally aggressive style.

“I would have had more hesitation if it wasn’t Flo and his staff,” O’Connell said, “and knowing the type of dialogue, not only with his staff but him and I, would have to get through a lot of layers of ultimately what our defense would be. What I wanted to do is make sure I communicated to him: ‘I have confidence in you, I’ve got belief in you, and these players will as well.'”

Sitting in the Vikings’ practice facility on a fall afternoon, Flores waved off grand pronouncements about this season, in the way gourmet chefs might claim a new dish is just something they threw together. While the specifics of his approach have changed from earlier stops in his career, the tenets have not.

“It’s always: What do we think is going to create some angst for the offense and will force some communication by them?” he said. “They’re trying to get 11 guys to communicate. It only takes one [mistake] to cut somebody [on defense] loose. We just try to create as much of that as possible.”