The Vikings' Blitz-Heavy Approach Under Brian Flores Hasn't Yielded Results
The Vikings' defense is blitzing at an extremely high rate under coordinator Brian Flores this season, as expected. The problem is that those blitzes haven't led to good results so far.
According to Pro Football Reference, the Vikings have blitzed 56 percent of the time in 2023. The Patriots (45) and Giants (41) are the only other teams above 40 percent. ESPN's Bill Barnwell described it as a defense "intent on banging its head against the wall."
Per Barnwell, the Vikings are allowing a 91.0 QBR on blitzes, fourth-worst in the league.
Only the Packers, Falcons, and Saints have been less effective, but they blitz far less often. You could forgive big gains if the blitzes were forcing lots of sacks or turnovers, but they haven't had a single interception with blitzes and have just six sacks on 108 plays with extra rushers. That's about half the league-average sack rate on blitzes of 9.3%.
So the Vikings aren't getting many sacks or turnovers on their blitzes, and they're getting carved up by opposing quarterbacks. That's not how it's supposed to go.
It's also hard to blame Flores too much. The Vikings simply don't have great personnel on that side of the ball, so he's doing what he thinks works best for this group. It doesn't help that the Vikings have faced Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes in two of the last three weeks — two elite QBs who have shredded Minnesota's blitzes. Sending extra pressure at Bryce Young in Week 4 worked extremely well, as it led to three Harrison Smith sacks and a fumble return for a touchdown.
The Vikings have also regularly been a play away from things looking different. What if Akayleb Evans catches the ball that hit his hands and resulted in a touchdown in Week 3? What if Camryn Bynum times his jump right on the 3rd and 18 play against the Chiefs? Those could've been two interceptions created by extra pressure.
Lastly, even though it's a low bar, the Vikings' defense has played better this season under Flores than last year under Ed Donatell. They're up from 24th to 19th in DVOA, from 31st to 19th in yards allowed, and from 29th to 23rd in points allowed.
Flores may want to dial back the aggressiveness a little bit in certain situations or matchups, but the heavy blitzing figures to lead to good results sooner or later.
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