Fronts
Let’s start up front. Under Flores and Jones, the Vikings primarily used a 3-4 base defense, consisting of three big interior defensive lineman, two smaller outside linebackers and two inside linebackers. With that front, they liked to keep both safeties back deep against a variety of personnel groups, trusting the front to defend the run.
But while the Vikings are a base 3-4 team under Jones and Flores, they are flexible with their personnel and their fronts. [T]here’s a lot of things they’re doing that we’ve seen from the Commanders over the past two years. We’ve seen bigger defensive tackles like Daron Payne and Javon Kinlaw shift outside to play as heavy ends. We’ve seen inside linebackers like Frankie Luvu walk down to the edge against run-heavy looks.
[T]he main takeaway is that the team could well be shifting to a 3-4 base defense under Jones. Shifting from a 4-3 to a 3-4 base defense isn’t as big of a deal as it was 15 years ago. Most defenses are very multiple and use principles and fronts from both 4-3 and 3-4 looks. While the Commanders were a 4-3 defense last year, they used 3-4 looks often, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shift for the current personnel, but obviously we’re expecting a big overhaul of the defense anyway, so that shift could change the profiles of players the Commanders target this offseason slightly.
Another big takeaway is the use of a three-safety big nickel package. The Vikings did it a lot under Flores and Jones. It helped that they had the talent to do it. The Commanders felt great about their safety room going into the 2025 season but most players largely underperformed. Adding more safeties could be a higher priority now.
Coverages
The Vikings are known for their aggressive, heavy-blitzing style of defense under Flores and Jones and I would expect Jones to try and replicate that here in Washington. But while they blitz a lot, the Vikings rarely played straight man coverage behind those blitzes. This is something that likely comes from Jones’ background. Flores came up under Bill Belichick and the Patriots, who used a ton of man coverage. Jones spent time under guys like Joseph who use more zone and match coverages.
As a result, the Vikings are still a very aggressive blitzing defense under Flores, but have the zone and match coverage principles imprinted on them from Jones. When they don’t blitz, they primarily play zone coverages, typically out of the quarters branch of coverages.
[To play] a 3-4 base defense and [use] zone coverage, [y]ou need outside linebackers, who are typically edge rushers, to be very capable of dropping back into coverage because they will do it regularly. The Vikings have exactly that type of player in Van Ginkel, who is extremely smart and very capable as both a rusher but also dropping off into coverage. I’m not sure if the Commanders currently have this type of player on the roster. Perhaps Frankie Luvu, but he’s not really good enough as an edge rusher and his coverage can be hit and miss. Dorance Armstrong could maybe fill that role, but he was their best pass rusher last season and you’d rather [have] him going forward than dropping back into coverage.
From a Commanders perspective, I think we can expect the team to lean much more towards zone and match coverages, particularly quarters coverages. That will be a big shift from where the team started the 2025 season, [when] they majored in man coverage. When Marshon Lattimore and Trey Amos [both got] injured, the Commanders began to shift more towards zone, and when Dan Quinn took over play-calling duties from Joe Whitt Jr., they leaned heavily into zone. But those were more basic zone coverages. Expect Jones to bring match zone coverages, as well as what we’re all anticipating — blitzes.
Blitz packages
We typically associate blitzes with man coverage, but the Vikings use a lot of fire zone blitzes, where they rush five and drop six into coverage. This helps the defense disguise where [the] fifth rusher is coming from, catching the offense by surprise, while still having a relatively safe zone coverage behind it and not exposing the corners to pure man coverage.
Zone blitzes have been around in the NFL for decades, but the usual way they are run consist[s] of three deep zone defenders and three underneath. The Vikings under Flores and Jones like to play more quarters from these zone blitz looks.
A big part of the reason the Vikings love to blitz the B gap is that when offensive lines slide their protection to one side or the other, the B gap is the one left open. That is a critical part to the success of this quarters fire zone concept.
Brian Flores is a master at designing exotic blitz packages to put the opposing quarterback under pressure and generate sacks or force the quarterback into hurried throws that can potentially be intercepted. It’s impossible to expect Jones to replicate everything Flores did to the same level, but I suspect we’ll see him try to keep the same aggressive mentality.
I couldn’t possibly cover all the different types of blitzes Flores put together with the Vikings, but I can at least cover some of the most frequent looks we saw from the Vikings defense last year. Let’s start with the most obvious blitz look, the Cover-0 package.
As the Commanders found out this season, Flores will call Cover-0 at any time in the game, on any down or distance. It could be first and 10 on the opening play or fourth and goal from the one with 10 seconds remaining. Flores is happy to call Cover-0 at any time in the game and isn’t afraid to do it multiple times in a game.
