Giants Say This is Key to Handling Aggressive Vikings Defense

The Vikings have been a blitz-happy defense under Brian Flores. Here's how the Giants can slow that down.

Nov 21, 2021; East Rutherford, N.J., USA; Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores during a game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

In 2023, only one team blitzed more on defense than the second-place New York Giants, and that team is not only coming to town this weekend to face the Giants, but it has also retained its defensive coordinator.

That team is the Minnesota Vikings, who under Brian Flores blitzed on a whopping 51.5 percent of the plays, higher than the Giants’ 45.4 percent. 

“Yeah, I'd say it's a completely different defense with Brian there and with a lot of new players that they've added. It's a pressure defense. He pressures often. Sometimes the entire game,” Giants head coach Brian Daboll said. 

“We've competed against one another when I was at Buffalo, him in Miami, and you go back and look at the game they played against the Rams when they had (Detroit Lions quarterback Jared) Goff and (Los Angeles Rams Head Coach Sean) McVay, and they blitz zeroed it every single snap. He presents a variety of challenges with the fronts.

That ultra-aggressive approach by Flores isn’t expected to change anytime soon; in fact, it might even intensify against a Giants offensive line that, until proven otherwise, is a question mark. And while the Giants can only guess what Flores has in store for them, there is a degree of confidence in the team’s locker room that they should be able to hold up in the face of pressure.

For one, quarterback Daniel Jones went against Martindale’s defense for the two years he was the team’s defensive coordinator. Martindale, like Flores, was known for his creative blitz packages.

“I think going up against Wink and all of the different pressures he brought, you’ve got to have answers and things to get to offensively,” Jones said. “This system, this defense, puts a lot of pressure on the offense, on the quarterback, and you’ve got to see it, understand what's happening, and be prepared.”

Left tackle Andrew Thomas, part of this year’s offensive tasked with trying to figure out which Vikings are coming and which ones are going to drop back into coverage, said it all boils down to communication on the offensive line.

“It's all about your rules and your communication,” he said. “We don't know exactly what they're going to do, but we try to read our keys and follow our rules. That's the only way to pick up blitz zero and those different pressures.”

Assistant head coach/ offensive coordinator Mike Kafka agreed that communication and being on the same page will be key. 

“They use a bunch of multiple looks, multiple fronts, and personnel groupings,” he said. “We got to be prepared for all that. 

“I think the biggest thing would be communication. When you have a team that does a lot of things, you want to make sure that we're all on the same page and seeing it through the same lens.”

One approach the Giants are likely to take is to get the ball out of Jones’s hands quickly and into the hands of the receivers so they can rack up the yards after the catch.  Guys like Malik Nabers, Wan’Dale Robinson, and Jalin Hyatt all have the capability to be “YAC monsters.”

Running back Devin Singletary, who’s also no slouch in the YAC department (7.0 career YAC average), could also have a potentially busy afternoon coming out of the backfield

“It's a challenge mentally,” Daboll said of facing the Vikings' defense. You have to make sure that you're on point with everything you need to be on point with to make sure a play works against 11 people that pressure, I'd say, quite often.” 

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