Patrick Peterson's Thoughts on Ed Donatell's Firing, Vikings' Defensive Coordinator Search

Peterson is a free agent but has said he'd love to be back in Minnesota in 2023.

Patrick Peterson was surprised when he heard the Vikings had fired defensive coordinator Ed Donatell after just one season. Like many other players, he loves Donatell and believes in the scheme they ran in 2022. The results were poor, but Peterson presumably thought the veteran coach would get another year to try to turn things around.

"I was shocked to see that they moved on from coach Ed," Peterson said on the latest episode of his podcast, All Things Covered. "But like we all know, how the business goes, if they feel like you’re not holding up to the standard that they’re holding you to, changes are going to be made. It’s unfortunate that they had to make that change just after one year. Coach Ed is such a great human being, has a great connection with the players. I just love the way he communicates with his players."

Peterson joined the Vikings in 2021 when Mike Zimmer was the head coach, then signed another deal last offseason to play under Kevin O'Connell and Donatell. That decision worked out wonderfully. Not only did the Vikings go 13-4 and win the NFC North, but Peterson had one of the best individual seasons of his career at age 32. He finished sixth among all cornerbacks in PFF grade, recording 15 passes defended and five interceptions.

Despite the strong play of Peterson and a few others, the Vikings' defense as a whole was a massive disappointment, ranking 28th in points allowed, 31st in yards allowed, and 27th in DVOA. They gave up yards with minimal resistance all season, surrendering far too many explosive plays. At times, they salvaged that by creating takeaways and stiffening on third down and in the red zone. That was part of the reason why the Vikings went 11-0 in one-score games. But when that didn't happen — like in the first-round playoff loss to the Giants — the defense was a complete liability.

Donatell took a lot of heat for his Vic Fangio-style scheme, which is predicated around sitting back in zone looks with two high safeties and only rushing four. But Peterson doesn't think the scheme — which has been deployed to great success in other places — was the problem. As he notes, it helped him have a great season of ball production because he got "to see the quarterback a little bit more" while playing more zone and less man.

"I love the scheme," Peterson said. "Just unfortunate that we didn’t perform better because it’s proven that the scheme works, the scheme is phenomenal. The proof is in the pudding."

That's when co-host Bryant McFadden interjected to ask the big question: If the scheme is so great, why didn't it work?

Peterson's answer focused on the pass rush.

"Our scheme is so based off getting pressure with our front four," he said. "And once teams started realizing that we had two really good guys off the edge — if you go back and look, the first eight games we was getting off on the quarterback, we wasn’t blitzing at all. Yeah we was giving up chunks because we (were) in much more of a zone defense eyes, for the most part, but they was just normally 5-0 protecting us, meaning it was their five guys versus our four guys. 

"Once they started seeing (Za'Darius Smith) was having monster games — two-sack games, three-sack games, just going crazy — at that point of the season, they started coming out in these thumper and chipper sets, meaning putting an H-back closer to the tackles to kind of detour our pass rushers to give the quarterback that much more time. When you pretty much play in a zone and your pass rush is not getting there, receivers (are) gonna find those open areas to make plays. I think once teams started getting in that max protection look and it was hard for us to kind of change our identity on the back end, I just think that’s when we wasn’t getting as much pressure as we needed to."

It's not surprising that a defensive back like Peterson would shift blame to the front, but it's still an interesting assessment of things. Even with Smith having a huge first half and Danielle Hunter coming on strong in the second half, the Vikings struggled to get pressure with their four-man pass rush at times. Eventually, they started blitzing a bit more, but it was too little, too late.

The linebackers and secondary also deserve plenty of blame, to be clear. All season long, there were pass-catchers running wide open against the Vikings' zones, especially over the middle of the field. It's a two-way street; when the coverage is poor, pass-rushers have very little time to work with before the quarterback gets the ball out.

Big changes are coming to the Vikings' defense, both in coaching and roster personnel. The first step is finding a new coordinator to replace Donatell. So far, the Vikings have interviewed Ryan Nielsen, Sean Desai, in-house option Mike Pettine, and Brian Flores. More could be coming.

Peterson — who is an unrestricted free agent but has said he'd love to return to Minnesota again — thinks the team should stick with a 3-4 scheme but turn up the heat a bit.

"I think they should get someone who still has the 3-4 scheme," he said. "I think it has to be a 3-4 scheme. Just, aggressive. Being aggressive, forcing offenses to change their hand. Being more of the defense that’s pressing the issue versus sitting back and relaxing."

Hiring someone like Desai or Pettine would likely mean running the same scheme with some tweaks. Going with Flores or Nielsen could mean changing things up entirely. It'll be fascinating to see which direction the Vikings choose.

You can find Peterson's full comments below.

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