A ‘gut feeling’ led Brian Flores to take job as Vikings’ defensive coordinator

Earlier this month, Brian Flores was a candidate to become head coach in Arizona or defensive coordinator for the Vikings. One would think he was zeroing in on landing the job with the Cardinals.

But that didn’t turn out to be the case. Flores said something hit a nerve when he attended church in Pittsburgh, where he spent last season as the Steelers’ senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach.

“The pastor was Brian Edmonds in Pittsburgh,” Flores said Wednesday. “He said in life there are instances where you can either have control or you can have growth, but you can’t have both. … That hit me pretty good.”

Flores, who turns 42 on Feb. 24, has been an head coach in the NFL — with the Miami Dolphins from 2019-21, going 24-25 before he was fired. However, he felt there was more room for him to grow in football. So he pulled out of the running to be Arizona’s coach after he had been scheduled for a second interview, and instead accepted on Feb. 5 the job that had been offered by the Vikings.

“You get a gut feeling… that this was the right place for me and my family,” said Flores, speaking to the media for the first time since being hired. “This was the right opportunity. …. I just felt that this was a great opportunity for growth.”

Flores will have plenty of work to do. Even though the Vikings went 13-4 during the 2022 regular season before losing 31-24 in the first round of the playoffs to the New York Giants, they ranked 31st in the NFL in total defense and 28th in scoring defense.

That got Ed Donatell fired on Jan. 19 after one season as defensive coordinator. Head coach Kevin O’Connell then went hard after Flores as his replacement, and he had his first interview with Minnesota on Jan. 26.

“He’s somebody that I targeted immediately, one of the first people that I reached out to in hopes of getting the opportunity to speak with him, and knowing just the possibilities he had, not only here but around the league, I knew it would be very competitive to be able to add this kind of individual to our organization,” O’Connell said. “And he’s already had a positive impact here. … Very, very excited about this moment for our team.”

Flores also interviewed for defensive coordinator jobs with Atlanta and Cleveland, and Denver put in a request to talk to him for its defensive coordinator position before he decided to go to Minnesota. Flores, who is Black, filed a class-action lawsuit last February against the NFL, the New York Giants, the Broncos and the Dolphins, alleging racial discrimination, and the suit is ongoing. Flores said Wednesday he couldn’t “dive deep into” the suit but he commended the “diversity” he sees in “every department” with the Vikings.

It helped in Flores’ decision process that he has had familiarity with O’Connell. In 2008, O’Connell was a rookie quarterback with New England and Flores was in his first year as a coach, serving as the team’s assistant special-teams coach. He previously had been a scouting assistant for the Patriots since 2004.

O’Connell was cut by the Patriots before the 2009 season while Flores remained with the franchise through 2018. They long have followed each other’s careers.

“We weren’t like texting back and forth over the years, but when we saw each other at games, we would say hello,” Flores said. “I always kept an eye on his career trajectory. … I always had a respect for the way he went about his business.”

When Flores interviewed with the Vikings, he gained plenty of knowledge about what it would be like to work with O’Connell.

“I’m aggressive by nature,” Flores said. “Philosophically, that’s something that I believe in. I left out of here feeling like there was a shared vision. He’s aggressive offensively, I’m aggressive defensively.”

Flores has used a 3-4 scheme for years, and he said that will be the Vikings’ base defense, although he noted it would be “game-plan specific.” Donatall used a 3-4 after shifting Minnesota’s defense from a 4-3, although it appears there could be significant differences in what Flores does.

Donatell wasn’t known for blitzing a lot, but that has been a trademark for Flores’ defenses. While Flores never had the title of defensive coordinator in New England, he did call the plays in 2018, and the Patriots finished No. 7 in the NFL that season in scoring defense and won the Super Bowl. And he headed the defense when he was Miami’s coach, ranking sixth in the NFL in scoring defense in 2020.

“I like to be aggressive, not reckless,” Flores said. “There’s a method to the madness, there’s a rhyme or reason, whether it’s down and distance, field position. But it’s not about me or Kevin, it’s about the players. It’s about their ability to execute, it’s about our ability to teach and coach and put them in the right positions, and getting them doing things that we think they can execute.”

Flores didn’t mention any specific Vikings players Wednesday and he was measured when talking about last season’s defense. While the defensive stats weren’t good, the Vikings did go an astounding 11-0 in one-score games, and a good number of those victories were sealed by important defensive plays. Minnesota players often talked about one of the keys being the closeness of players.

“The seeds are here from a culture standpoint and a camaraderie standpoint,” Flores said of the defense he has inherited.

Still, there could be a lot of changes on defense for the Vikings, who in 2022 had five starters 30 years or older — safety Harrison Smith, cornerback Patrick Peterson, and linebackers Za’Darius Smith, Eric Kendricks and Jordan Hicks. Peterson is an impending free agent, as are starters Dalvin Tomlinson and Jonathan Bullard at defensive end, Duke Shelley at cornerback and nickel back Chandon Sullivan.

The defense really struggled in the playoff game against the Giants, when quarterback Daniel Jones threw for 301 yards and ran for 78 on Jan. 15. Donatell was fired four days later, and O’Connell immediately turned his focus to Flores. O’Connell talked to a number of people who have spent plenty of time with Flores, including New England special-teams ace Matthew Slater and former Patriots linebacker and current linebackers coach Jerod Mayo.

“I reached out to just get a feel of who I remembered watching him from afar throughout his football journey and then hopefully culminating he and I getting to do football together, which I’m so dang excited about,” O’Connell said.

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