Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores chats with the media on Tuesday, December third, 2024, after his group beat the Arizona Cardinals by a rating of 23-22 on December 1st. Minnesota employed Flores earlier than the beginning of the 2023 season to steer the protection.
The Minnesota Vikings’ offseason is right here, and this go-round, one in all their high coaches is firmly on the NFL’s teaching carousel.
Right here’s What’s Subsequent for Brian Flores
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is a scorching commodity this cycle, a lot in order that three franchises wish to communicate to him about head teaching vacancies.
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And because of NFL Community‘s Ian Rapoport, we know what’s subsequent for Flores — back-to-back-to-back scheduled interviews with the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Chicago Bears.
Rapoport tweeted Thursday, three days after the Vikings’ season sadly ended with a loss to the Los Angeles Rams: “A big few days loom for Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, one of the top candidates. He has 3 head coach interviews set up: — Jets on Friday. — Jaguars on Friday. — Bears on Saturday.”
Underneath Flores in 2024, Minnesota’s protection ranked second finest within the NFL per EPA/Play. The group was elite by almost each effectivity metric. In actual fact, Flores mounted Minnesota’s protection in a single offseason, from 2022 to 2023, and the group achieved new heights in 2024. Accordingly, different golf equipment desire a piece of Flores or no less than some interviews.
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Per ESPN’s Dan Graziano, Flores will find yourself because the Bears’ subsequent skipper. That’s Graziano’s official prediction from an article this week forecasting every relevant franchise’s head coach choice.
“There are hurdles for Flores — who appears to be a strong candidate for the Jets job, as well — to clear before any team can hire him. That’s especially true in Chicago; there will be questions about his past relationship with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in Miami as the Bears evaluate him as a candidate to shepherd Caleb Williams’ development,” Graziano defined.
Graziano continued, “But by all accounts, it sounds like Flores has made a very different impression on people in Minnesota than he did in Miami. He has been public about the reasons things went wrong for him with the Dolphins and what he has learned from that situation that would make things different at his next stop. One more relevant note here: Flores and Bears GM Ryan Poles both went to Boston College, so there’s a connection there.”
Flores coached the Miami Dolphins from 2019 to 2021 earlier than a controversial break up. Miami allegedly requested Flores to tank video games for higher draft picks, which he refused. The younger coach later sued the NFL for a sham interview course of in the course of the 2022 teaching carousel, litigation that’s nonetheless pending.
A few months in the past, Flores defined that he would like to be a head coach once more within the NFL if the chance have been proper. The Jets, Jaguars, and Bears don’t outwardly characterize sterling alternatives, however Flores may, in principle, be talked into one of many locations. No less than to some extent, all three organizations are recognized for some dysfunction degree.
The Vikings would obtain two 2026 compensatory draft picks if Flores earned a head teaching job, most likely within the mid-round vary.
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Ought to Flores skedaddle this offseason, the Vikings may discover an inside candidate like defensive passing sport coordinator Daronte Jones as his substitute or exterior choices like Robert Saleh, Jerod Mayo, or Brandon Staley.
Flores will flip 44 subsequent month.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the College of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his each day YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The present options friends, evaluation, and opinion on all issues associated to the purple group, with 4-7 episodes per week. His MIN obsession dates again to 1996. Listed responsible pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doorways (the band). He follows the NBA as intently because the NFL.
All statistics supplied by Professional Soccer Reference / Stathead; all contractual info supplied by OverTheCap.com.
