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The Minnesota Vikings have been one of the best surprises of the 2024 NFL season. Minnesota is 5-1 heading into Week 8, only recently suffering their first loss of the season in a one-score loss to Detroit. The Vikings have their defense to thank for much of their success in the early parts of the season. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is the architect of it all.
However, not everyone is a Brian Flores fan. Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa is a vocal critic of Flores' coaching style, which he critiqued in an interview back in August.
Current Vikings players disagree. They stood up in defense of their DC in a recent ESPN article from Kevin Seifert.
“It's just not his ‘why,'” Vikings pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Daronte Jones said. “He's deserving to accomplish that again and get that opportunity, but it's not a driving force and not something we ever talk about.”
Safety Josh Metellus also believes Flores has a chance to become a head coach once again.
“Honestly that might be what the media is worried about, but what we see is a guy who is just worried about coaching good football. He's the Vikings' defensive coordinator and wants to win doing that.”
Metellus believes that personality differences could be why some players like Flores and others don't.
“Personalities differ, obviously,” Metellus said. “But you can just tell it comes from a place of passion not from a place of nagging, or when you feel a coach is on you just to be on you. It comes from a place of, ‘I know what you've got and I know what you can do, let me see it' kind of thing.”
Tua Tagovailoa blasted Vikings DC Brian Flores for coaching style during preseason interview
This entire narrative really began during the preseason after Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa's fiery answer about coaching changes on the Dan Le Betard Show.
Tagovailoa heavily critiqued Flores' coaching style in contrast to Mike McDaniels, the current Dolphins head coach.
“To put it in simplest terms,” Tua began. “If you woke up every morning and I told you [that] you suck at what you did, that you don't belong doing what you do. That you shouldn't be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven't earned this right. And then you have someone else come in and tell you dude you are the best fit for this. You're accurate, you're the best whatever… how would it make you feel listening to one or the other?”
Tagovailoa went on to suggest that he started to believe the negative things he was hearing from Brian Flores.
“Then you hear it, regardless of what it is the good or the bad, more and more,” Tua continued. “You start to actually believe that.”
Thankfully for the Dolphins, Tua has thrived under head coach Mike McDaniel. Tua has had his two best career seasons with McDaniel in 2022-23.
Dolphins fans are hopeful that Tua can recapture that magic in the second half of the regular season after returning from his scary early-season concussion.
