Chris Trapasso · SB Nation Fri, November 6, 2026 at 1:08 PM UTC · 6 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A game against the Vikings means your offense will get the full Brian Flores Experience, a blitz-crazed defense that sends two or three extra rushers at your offensive line…all game.
That's what the Buffalo Bills have in front of them on Monday Night Football in Week 9. Entering this contest, Minnesota owns the league's highest blitz rate (on dropbacks) at 74.2%. The Commanders are second at 44.5%, and the league average is 31.2%. Minnesota blitzes frequently on run plays too.
Let's dig into the ingenuity of Flores' enormous blitzing arsenal.
We'll begin in Week 1, Minnesota's game against Jordan Love and the Packers.
What you'll see below is Vikings in an overload look to the left side of the Packers offensive front… with four defenders on the line of scrimmage on that side of the ball, compared to just two on the other side of the center.
But at the snap is when the calculated chaos ensued.
Cornerback Byron Murphy, who initially looked to be covering Christian Watson in a tight split near the numbers on the upper portion of the screen, screamed off the edge as a blitzer.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the defensive front, Andrew Van Ginkel, floated backward into coverage, and cornerback Isaiah Rodgers is actually the furthest outside blitzer.
With the all the down linemen sliding left, it provided Rodgers a free run into the backfield:
Watch again, and notice how the Packers tight end Josh Whyle — originally in motion —was ready for Rodgers and picked him up as he cut back toward the left side of Green Bay's line.
However, because his blocking assignment drew him in that direction, he wasn't positioned to help the right side of the Packers front that suddenly featured a right tackle stretched exceptionally wide by Murphy's cornerback blitz and Minnesota's most purely gifted outside rusher Dallas Turner erupting past the right guard.
Even when an offensive line thinks it picks up the blitzer Flores intended to get a free run, there's often a secondary hole opened for another defender to disrupt the pocket.
Flores absolutely will show all-out, eight-man pressure in this game. It's one of his trademarks. That doesn't always mean eight defenders are entering the rush on that play. In fact, that rarely happens. Discerning which defender(s) will drop into coverage is the challenge, particularly as the game clock is winding down.
Like here, against the Packers, the Vikings showed an eight-pass pressure package. Behind that hyper-aggressive look was plenty of green grass before three defensive backs roughly 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, splitting the field into thirds.
Pay close attention to what transpired at the snap and a split second later. The two outer most rushers on the left side of their defensive front show blitz but never actually rushed the quarterback, and linebacker Blake Cashman dropped into coverage underneath. On the edge, Van Ginkel watched the quarterback and kept contain.
Jordan Love missed a wide-open out-breaking route at the 40 yard line because he's forced into a quick decision which ultimately was a deep-ball attempt toward Christian Watson that was nearly intercepted.
The takeaway from that blitz is critical. Quite naturally, the Vikings have to drop at least one defender toward the side of the field with more receivers.
That feature of Minnesota's blitzes is noteworthy. It's the one distinct way an offense's pass game can dictate to the Vikings defense.
Note here, on this blitz against the Buccaneers, how linebacker Eric Wilson sunk at the snap toward the side of the field with three receivers for Tampa Bay.
And, sometimes, the sinking defender (occasionally it's two defenders) take three or four steps to sell blitz before retreating into a short zone.
There are two receivers to Jared Goff's right in this pre-snap alignment. At the snap, and even a second after it, the Vikings made a convincing case for an an all-out, eight-man pressure. But the blitz only featured seven, as Cashman exploded forward, disappeared into the middle of Detroit's offensive line then dropped into the middle of the field to take away Jahmyr Gibbs' underneath route.
In those all-out blitz looks, even if the Vikings ultimately send six or seven rushers — which is still an extremely high amount of rushers toward the quarterback — it's beneficial for the offense to feature as many routes with quick breaks off the vertical stem as possible.
On that specific play, notice how Jameson Williams and Amon Ra-St. Brown ran vertically and didn't have their heads fully turned around as Goff was being sacked.
Sure, the Lions were in a seven-man protection, but the offense can't assume every blocker will find his exact assignment in a flash after the snap.
And I've saved the most creative Flores blitz for last.
This came on a sack of Daniel Jones against the Colts.
Rather unusually, the Vikings were clearly in man coverage across the board — they've used man just 7.2% of the time, the lowest rate in the league and well below the NFL average of 22.4%. And it wasn't an all-out pressure look, as it was reasonably easy to discern Minnesota's five "known rushers" before the snap.
But pay close attention to the defender second-furthest from the left edge along Minnesota's front. It's Cashman, and at the snap, he started toward the Colts right tackle, as if he was going to deploy a stunt with edge rusher Dallas Turner. After selling the DT-DE stunt — Cash was effectively a defensive tackle on that play — he planted his foot in the ground to change directions completely and loop all the way through the A gap.
Unsurprisingly Cashman got a free run at Jones and registered the sack.
I don't believe I've ever seen that type of blitz before. That's not to say it's the first of its kind in NFL history, yet that type of creativity with one defender is exceptionally rare.
Imagine an entire offensive line group, extra blocking help in the backfield, and the quarterback processing everything in front of them in roughly 10-15 seconds after breaking the huddle and then again in one second after the snap.
It's precisely what makes facing this Flores defense so difficult.
Offenses know they're going to blitz on almost every snap.
But the Vikings don't care if they're predictable because they have such a wide variety of blitzes to stress the offensive communication throughout the duration of each contest.
Source: Sports
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