Inside The Vikings

Vikings' Swiss Army Knife Josh Metellus Deserves Serious Pro Bowl Buzz

Metellus is having an incredible, Pro Bowl-caliber season in Brian Flores' defense.

Will Ragatz

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Danielle Hunter has probably been the Vikings' best defensive player this season. Three different players — Jordan Hicks, Camryn Bynum, and most recently Ivan Pace Jr. — have won NFC Defensive Player of the Week after huge games. Harrison Smith and Harrison Phillips are both having strong years.

And yet, no player better epitomizes the Vikings' defensive brilliance this season under Brian Flores than Josh Metellus. He's their Swiss Army Knife, their ultimate chess piece, their "Mr. Everything." And he deserves serious consideration for a Pro Bowl spot.

Before this season, the Vikings quietly extended Metellus — who was entering the final year of his rookie contract — for $8 million over two years. On the surface, that may have seemed like a lot of money for a former sixth-round pick who spent the vast majority of his first three seasons playing on special teams.

These days, that deal looks like an absolute steal.

After playing just over 250 defensive snaps last season, Metellus has been an every-down player in Flores' scheme this year. He's one of the most versatile defenders in the entire league, lining up all over the field depending on the Vikings' personnel grouping and play call. Metellus is technically listed as a safety, but he plays just about everywhere, as the FOX broadcast highlighted on Sunday.

Some of those positions are maybe stretching it a little bit — PFF lists Metellus as having one snap at DE and one snap at DT all year — but you get the point. On any given play, he could be just about anywhere. Among his 791 defensive snaps through 13 games, 300 have come in the slot, 284 have come in the box, 150 have come at outside linebacker, and there are snaps at outside corner and free safety mixed in there too.

It's not just that Metellus plays everywhere. What makes him special is how productive and important he is in all of those roles. 

"It's great to be versatile, but it's his effectiveness of doing all those jobs really, really well," Kevin O'Connell said. "(He's a) guy that can fill a lot of different roles — physical enough in the run game, great blitzer, has some ball skills, great tackler in space. It's always kind of shown up historically, throughout his career, in the kicking game. A lot of those skill sets have just been applied to the defensive side of the ball and he's thriving."

Metellus was the highest-graded safety in the NFL in Week 14. He made one of the biggest plays of the game, punching the ball out of Hunter Renfrow's hands to keep the Raiders off the scoreboard in the third quarter — his fourth forced fumble of the year.

For the season, Metellus ranks 13th in PFF grade among 63 safeties who have played at least 500 snaps. He's got a grade above 70 in all four major areas that PFF tracks: Run defense, tackling, pass rush, and coverage. Metellus has been uniquely deployed as a blitzer this year, with his 20 quarterback pressures leading all safeties by a decent margin. The raw box score stats are impressive on their own: 88 tackles, 5 tackles for loss, 10 QB hits, 1.5 sacks, 4 forced fumble, 4 passed defended, a fumble recovery, and an interception. Seemingly every week, he makes at least one splash play that impacts the game.

To go from a sixth-round pick playing on special teams to a team captain and every-down defensive player is an impressive story on its own. But it shouldn't stop there. Considering how well he's playing this season and how critical his versatility is to the Vikings' top-five defense, Metellus deserves legitimate buzz to be one of the six NFC safeties selected to this year's Pro Bowl.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

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