Matthew Coller: Vikings are looking to change the math on defense

ORLANDO, Fla. — Brian Flores tried his darndest to use everybody he had on the 2023 Minnesota Vikings roster.

In fact, 20 players were on the field for at least 100 defensive snaps in Flores’ unit. But injuries and a shortage of depth in some spots still required some players to either play out of position or take on workloads that were more than ideal.

Kevin O’Connell wants to see that change this year. On Tuesday at the owner’s meetings in Orlando, the Vikings’ head coach talked about his desire to keep players on the defensive side more fresh next season as the defense aims to take another step forward to build upon last season’s improvement. He started that conversation with Harrison Smith, who returns for his age-35 season in 2024. While he still brings plenty to the Vikings’ defense, O’Connell understands that it isn’t ideal that he was required to be on the field for 1,111 snaps in 2023, the seventh most among safeties in the NFL.

“We are not going to be able to play him as much,” O’Connell said. “Guys like Harrison Smith, Harrison Phillips, Jordan Hicks, [Jonathan Bullard] and you think about how many snaps they had to play, that’s where we’re not just trying to be better from the standpoint of the… starting group but it’s the depth.”

The exact snap counts for the aforementioned players were 838 for Phillips (career high by 100), 643 for Jonathan Bullard (career high by 206) and Jordan Hicks (813 despite missing five games due to injury). They weren’t the only ones. DJ Wonnum played 200-plus more snaps than 2022 and Danielle Hunter went over 1,000 snaps for the first time in his career.

O’Connell said that he got together with Flores to lay out a plan to replace players that were leaving and add new layers of versatility and depth to the defense to avoid overusing players as they did last season. There are a few new additions who will potentially have domino effects that could result in more appropriate usage totals. One of them that O’Connell talked about was cornerback Shaquill Griffin.

When the Vikings signed Byron Murphy Jr. last offseason they expected to use him as their nickel corner. But with a shortage of outside corners and Josh Metellus’ emergence, Murphy Jr. ended up playing much more of an outside corner role than was ideal. With the veteran Griffin now on the outside, they can bump Murphy Jr. inside and Metellus back to Smith’s spot at safety when they need to lighten the workload.

“Getting a veteran presence in that room on the outside [in Griffin]… Byron Murphy now can really shift in in those 11-personnell worlds can shift back to that nickel spot where he’s one of the better nickels in the league in my opinion,” O’Connell said. “Any time you make a move at a corner spot you are really making a multi-faceted move where a guy like Byron is shifting inside and being an impact from there.”

O’Connell added that having Murphy Jr. inside would allow them to play more man coverage and give Flores even more options to connect pressures and coverage together.

The Vikings’ head coach talked at length about the importance of signing Andrew Van Ginkel. The ex-Dolphin was used by Flores in Miami in a number of different ways, from alignments in different spots up front to coverage and pass rushing assignments that look like a pure edge rusher sometimes and a cover linebacker others. Last year they did not have a player like him, rather they used Hunter and Wonnum, who were both drafted and developed by the previous regime to be more traditional D-ends.

“[Flores] from the very beginning of free agency [wanted] that Swiss army knife type,” O’Connell said. “Now envisioning not only what we have in Josh Metellus and Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum and the pass rush with Greenard, to pair with their skillsets, that’s what I’m most excited about. The roles that we plan on having for those guys and the defense can really expand because of the comfort and what [Flores] wants to be doing. Gink is a huge part of how we want to build our whole defense but you can’t do that unless you get that skillset.”

The Vikings also brought back Bullard and added veterans Jerry Tillery and Jonah Williams to give them more flexibility and depth at defensive tackle.

But the Vikings still do not have an argument as one of the deeper defensive rosters in the league. They will not be able to survive 17 games based solely on a few free agents who can make them more versatile. O’Connell is aware that in order to be an excellent defense there will need to be young players stepping into bigger roles in 2024.

There are plenty of candidates from the last two drafts that could take a step — or rather need to take a step. Cornerback Akayleb Evans was the only 2022 or 2023 draft pick on defense to play more than 500 snaps last season. Here’s the rest of the list:

• CB, Mekhi Blackmon — 434 snaps
• CB, Andrew Booth Jr. — 151
• DT, Jaquelin Roy — 95
• LB, Brian Asamoah — 36
• S, Jay Ward — 35
• S, Lewis Cine — 8

“I’ve challenged the coaching staff to find the best possible avenues to develop some of these players, young guys that we brought into this organization in ‘22 or ‘23 in addition to what we do from a draft or free agency standpoint,” O’Connell said.

The need may be increased even more depending on whether the Vikings trade up in the draft. If they send multiple draft picks to one of the teams at the top then they will be looking to turn fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounders into the next Cam Bynum or Josh Metellus rather than the immediate-impact blue chippers. However, O’Connell did make mention that if the Vikings do not move the top of the draft being dominated by offensive picks may play in their favor.

There is still work to be done on the defense before it can look like a finished product but this offseason it became more of a reflection of the way Flores wants to play, which could result in progress if things go their way.