Brian Flores' hire is also about Kevin O'Connell's progress as a head coach
EAGAN — Brian Flores did not have any surprises in store for us at his opening press conference at TCO Performance Center on Wednesday.
The Minnesota Vikings’ new defensive coordinator did not reveal his plans for the roster — whether he wants to rebuild it in his vision or run it back with a scheme that fits the players’ strengths better. Instead he spoke in general terms about the types of players that he wants on his team.
“Tough, smart, disciplined and physical,” Flores said in his description of the type of defender he wants on his side. “I’m big on versatility. Guys being able to play multiple spots and, in order to do that, you’ve gotta get them coached up in those multiple spots.”
Flores did not talk in depth about why he chose Minnesota rather than completing other interviews. Reportedly the Cardinals still considered him in the running and the Denver Broncos were interested in talking with him about their open defensive coordinator job.
“You almost get a gut feeling,” Flores said. “I think we’ve all kind of had those. That this was the place for me and my family. This was the right opportunity. It’s funny. I was in church a couple weeks ago as this was all going on and the pastor, Brian Edmonds, in Pittsburgh, he said, ‘In life there are instances where you can either have control or you can have growth. And you can’t have both.’ That hit me pretty good. I just felt like this was a great opportunity for growth.”
The former Dolphins head coach, who was most recently on Mike Tomlin’s staff in Pittsburgh, did not want to go into detail about his lawsuit against the NFL over its hiring practices regarding Black coaches.
“When I walk in this building, you see diversity, really, across the board in every department,” he said. “That’s exciting. So, those are things that are ongoing. Obviously, the lawsuit is ongoing, but I’m where my feet are. Right now, my feet are right here in Eagan.”
Will his feet be in Eagan for long? He did not want to say. Regardless of the suit, Flores built an excellent reputation as a head coach while in Miami. Despite the team’s (alleged) desires to tank, he turned them around quickly from a 5-11 team in 2019 to 19-14 between 2020 and 2021. Many teams in the NFL should hope for such results. So is Minnesota a stop on the way back to the head coaching ranks?
“I think any other opportunities that may present themselves in the future, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Flores said. “Obviously, I have goals and things that I would like to accomplish in the future, but those can change. I’m happy right now in Minnesota, I really am. I’m happy here with Kevin and this opportunity is something that I’m overjoyed to be a part of this organization. We’ll see what happens in the future.”
One of the reasons Flores was able to turn Miami into a competitor was his viscious defense. He became known for his “zero” blitzes, which send everybody after the quarterback who isn’t covering a receiver one-on-one. Flores acknowledged that he is “aggressive by nature” but joked, “you want all the secrets right now?” when asked to explain his zero-blitz philosophy.
“Maybe I’ll try to come up with a different way of presenting it, but that’s the game,” he said. “There is always new trends within the league and it’s our job to stay up on them.”
So none of Flores’ responses carried the potential to overload ProFootballTalk or get a BREAKING NEWS ticker along the bottom of NFL Network but an underlying storyline beyond the obvious was his synergy with head coach Kevin O’Connell’s way of viewing winning football.
“I think he’s learned this term that he used called ‘weighty downs’ – I think he learned it maybe from Mike [Tomlin], but those critical downs where the ability of a coordinator, with the experience that B-Flo has, to apply pressure to the offense in a lot of different ways,” O’Connell said. “And that can look a lot of different ways week-in and week-out. What are the things we want to do to maximize our guys’ chances of success while also, in some cases mitigating risk, but making sure that in the end, the aggressive mindset of our football philosophy.”
Last year O’Connell appeared to be frustrated by the lack of aggressiveness and adaptability of his defense as the season went along under defensive coordinator Ed Donatell. He talked on Wednesday about reflecting on his first year as a head coach, managing the offensive side as the play caller while commanding the entire coaching staff.
“It was a process for me as a first-time head coach, as a play-caller, managing those situations in the game, making sure that my communication with the whole staff was up to the standard that I wanted it to be,” O’Connell said. “And those are some of the things that I look to continue to improve on. And whether it was a new coach in a role like the defensive coordinator role or continuing to build on that game day relationship up with our whole staff is something I’m really going to focus on.”
He continued…
“I feel very strongly that I’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of things that I feel we did well, but there’s definitely some things that I look back on, personally, that I could be much better at for our team.”
We don’t have to read deeply into O’Connell’s comments to connect them with the defensive struggles from last season and his self reflection about what he could have done better to stop the bleeding.
In Flores he now has a former head coach who shares some of his influences in the game, i.e. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
“I just felt it was such a great camaraderie immediately,” Flores said. “I walked out of here and I called my wife immediately and said with all the things that are going on, I felt like this was the place for us.”
Finding a defensive coordinator who shares his vision is vital because O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will be tasked with difficult decisions with the roster, teaching a new system and navigating a schedule filled with star quarterbacks and elite offenses in 2023.
“It was interesting – as we got into just random questions throughout the interview process and I kept on hearing things where our football foundation and philosophies are very, very similar,” O’Connell said.
In the coming weeks the Vikings will shape their new direction on defense. The two Patriot protégés will need to be on the same page to avoid 2022’s issues and to begin the process of creating a sustainable defense for years to come. Getting on the same page with his defensive coordinator is both the next step in O’Connell’s progress as a head coach and the thing that could propel his team to the “championship standard” they are talking about this offseason.
