There is significant pressure on the Minnesota Vikings this season, and much of that has to do with the way the team has played defense for the past three seasons.
On the surface, the Vikings are coming off an impressive 13-4 regular season in which they cruised to the NFC North title. The team appeared to thrive under first year head coach Kevin O'Connell, and there was no denying that the Vikings had an explosive offense led by wideout Justin Jefferson and quarterback Kirk Cousins.
The Vikings proved especially adept at coming through in the fourth quarter of close games, and that ability allowed them to pull of a signature victory on the road over the Buffalo Bills last year. In that game, Jefferson made one of the great catches of the year late in the fourth quarter that allowed them to keep a crucial drive alive, and Cousins delivered multiple clutch passes even though he took a battering from the Bills' aggressive defense.
That 33-30 overtime triumph allowed the Vikings to climb to 8-1 at the time, and there were significant whispers that they might be able to compete for the NFC title. Those whispers were subsequently wiped out in one-sided losses to the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers, as the Vikings defense was unable to hold up against either of those teams.
Vikings hire Brian Flores
The Vikings had the 31st-ranked defense in yards allowed and passing yards allowed, and this was part of a trend. The team had been awful on defense during the 2020 and 2021 season, the final two years under head coach Mike Zimmer.
The fact that Zimmer had been a defensive specialist was especially troubling, and the Vikings were not able to make any kind of improvement last year under Ed Donatell.
The Donatell regime ended shortly after the Vikings were eliminated in the Wild Card round of the playoffs following a loss at home to the mediocre New York Giants. Donatell's scheme was simply too easy for opponents to figure out, and a middle of the road quarterback like Daniel Jones sliced and diced the Minnesota defense with ease.
O'Connell got serious about his defense by hiring Brian Flores as his defensive coordinator away from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Flores had previously been the head coach of the Miami Dolphins and had learned many of his techniques as an assistant coach under Bill Belichick.
Flores coaches a much more involved and complex scheme than Donatell, and his game plan is to change his set up based on the opponent and his team's strengths.
Preseason results offer little
While there are some teams that at least want to show what they are capable of doing by playing at least one solid game in the preseason, the Vikings are not one of them. They have lost all three preseason games in each of O'Connell's first two seasons as head coach.
So, it is hard to make a prediction that the Flores defense is going to show significant improvement. However, a look at the makeup of the defense offers a hint that Flores is not going to accept anything less than players who give maximum effort on every single player.
The indication of that is the presence of three undrafted rookie free agents who made it through cutdown day and earned spots on the 53-man roster.
In a normal year, one undrafted rookie free agent may make the team or perhaps one on offense and one one on defense, but three on one side of the ball is a shocking number.
Linebacker Ivan Pace, linebacker Andre Carter II and cornerback NaJee Thompson all made it through training camp.
Carter is likely to see most of his action on special teams and Thompson could be a contributor in that area as well as the secondary, but it is Pace who has a chance to turn into an impact player.
Pace demonstrates all-around game and skill
Pace looks like he would struggle to play at the college level because he is relatively tiny at 5-10 and 231 pounds. However, the Vikings scouts loved his tenacity and sharp play when he played for the Cincinnati Bearcats.
That allowed him to earn an invitation to the team's rookie and minicamps, and he survived those two phases of offseason work with flying colors.
There was no downturn in training camp, and Pace excelled at defeating bigger and stronger men when it came to rushing the passer. He has a way of making himself difficult to block on the blitz, and that makes him an ideal player in the Flores scheme.
Pace has checked all the boxes to this point, and the Vikings are hoping his speed and tenacity pay off with big plays on defense in 2023.
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