Unpacking Brian Flores’ defensive ‘masterclass’ against Lions | Chris Simms Unbuttoned | NFL on NBC

Unpacking Brian Flores’ defensive ‘masterclass’ against Lions | Chris Simms Unbuttoned | NFL on NBC

the Vikings and Steelers defenses turned it around against two powerhouse offenses. Chris you and I got some mid-season awards to hand out. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Lot of fun. We uh if you missed it, we had a ton of trade deadline news recaped in our last show. We were live Tuesday at uh 2 p.m. So if you missed any of our reaction to Sauce Gardner, Quinn Williams, Rasheed Shahed, Jacobe Meyers, right? If anything comes out, Draymond Jones, we hit on a little bit. Roger McCra to the Rams. It happened last week, right? Yeah, we hit it all, I think. All right. So, the film, film review, week nine, Brian Flores clinic in this one, Chris, in a game where believe the Vikings at one point were nine and a half point underdogs. This spread was it was one of the biggest of the week in a week of big spreads. Not only did the Vikings cover the line, but they win the game. And I think the story has to be what Flores defense did to make Jared Goff uncomfortable. Definitely. We hit it on a Monday a little bit, right? We we we talked about it and the the theme we kind of came away with that I thought watching the game was that getting Jared Goff off the spot, right, and making him move just a little bit. Didn’t need to don’t need to make him run, but just when Jared Goff has to Oh, whoa, whoa. And then try to throw it or anything like that. He’s lesser than in those scenarios. He’s tough as hell. I know that. And Jared Goff. And again, when there’s pressure bearing down on him and he can step in and throw it, he’ll sit there and take the hit. But these were pressures where it was like he couldn’t set up the throw. He had to move first and then kind of recalibrate and then throw. And that was the theme of the football game. There’s no doubt about that. All right. So, that’s one big thing. I think the other thing you look at with Detroit, yeah, they’re not as creative on the offensive side of the ball as they were with Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson, there was more movements. There was more shifts. There was more diversity in mo uh in in in the offensive formations before the play, right? And also, I think there was a little more creativity after the snap, too. Yeah. Again, again, I’m not saying John Morton’s doing a really good job. But, you know, I think Ben Johnson’s special. I mean, special special. So, that’s where I look at it. I think also too, another thing that jumps out to me is I think Detroit plays 12 personnel too much. I really do. That that is another thing that I looked at throughout the game where I just went, “Hey, the way they’re playing and everything here, this might be a game where like if they want to blitz and drop and do certain stuff like this, if you just get three speed receivers with one of your running backs who can catch the ball in the back field and get them out a little bit, I think that would have stressed them out instead of like always keeping two tight ends in.” And I think them feeling comfortable about maybe taking a chance here or something like that cuz they’re going, “Wait, as long as we don’t let Jameson Williams run by us deep.” I know Aman Rosain Brown’s really good, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not run by a deep 80 yard touchdown guy. Then we feel good that, you know, we can come up with something creative and Flores is just a master that way. And yeah, he found a lot of cool ways to get into Jared Goff’s face. That’s what he found to uh on Sunday. The aggression that he dials up, I mean, they blitzed over 58% of the time in this game, but he had 44% of those were simulated pressures, which is the big point from your notebook. Yes. Right. Yeah. See, see, so I I don’t call that, you know, I I call it blitz zone change, right? It’s just change. It’s like, yes, there’s a guy blitzing, but there’s somebody changing into his spot, right? So, it’s not an open area. It’s not an open area. It was a lot of still fourman rushes, even though we’re going to say they’re blitzes, right? Which they are. I mean, to to two guys blitz, but then two guys drop out. One guy blitzes, one guy drops out. whatever it was. But I felt like I would say two out of every three, you know, plays in where they felt like they were going to pass the ball, right? Someone was going to blitz up the middle, right? They couldn’t do it every play because, of course, you know, if you do it all the time, they’re going to start to go, “Oh, we got we got we got something for you here or there.” But them bringing interior pressure with the middle linebackers hitting a gap and then maybe the two DNs dropping back was a consistent theme through the day. And what it did throughout the day was yes, confuse the protection of the Detroit Lions because they want to keep big people on big people. And now, okay, they want their O line to drop the D block the D lineman, right? Well, wait, two of the Dlinemen drop. Now there’s two guys going down the middle. Okay, yeah, the center is going to take one of them, but the other one now is the back that has to take the other guy, right? And that was another problem with the day. Jir Gibbs is going to be tested going forward anytime he’s in on an obvious passing situation. They kind of exposed him in pass. He was pushed back and you know physically overwhelmed a few times in the game to where and again he’s a little bit of a smaller guy. He’s not a big He brings it, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like not of like not wanting to. It’s just you good luck blocking somebody who’s 61 or 6’2 235 and they have a 8 to 10 yard head start and they’re running full speed and you just get to take one or two steps up and you got to meet them and stop them in the tracks like good luck. I guarantee it. Go out there and try it. See how it works out for you. Send us the videos. So that to me is going to be something that I think will we know it’s a copycat league and I think when people see Jimmy or Gibbs in they’re going to go wait we can’t cover him. Let’s try to find a way to blitz them because we think we can overwhelm them and then we don’t have to worry about covering them either. And I think that could work twofold. But that’s going to be a thing for Detroit here as we go forward. Well, let’s get right into it because to your point about the pressure up the middle, they kind of set the tone of the day early on. Exactly. Right. This is the first quarter. 12 minutes and 56 seconds. Third and four on the Minnesota 40. And what do the Vikings do here, Chris? They are going to blitz up the middle and make Jared Goff move as we have the exact dots and the setup of it behind us. But I think the key here, Chris, is to focus on the A gaps, right? It’s the A gaps and the interior part of the offensive line is a little underwhelming right now for the Detroit Lions. Right. You know, Mahogany is not very good in pass pro. Anything movement wise, he’s really not good. That was his problem at Boston College. Exactly right. He can drive you off the ball in the run game, but his feet aren’t good. Graham Glascow is not one of the top tier centers in the football. Tate Brother is doing a pretty good job. But again, he’s a rookie, too. But here you see the play here. And again, you could see, okay, we got four D linemen. Grard 97, 61, 43, right? The two edge guys, Grinard and Van Ginkle, they drop out and within that, you get Blake Cashman and I can’t remember 55’s name off the top of my head here. I’m going to blank it. But the two backers go up the middle. you see here and it makes golf again move out of the pocket. Nothing great, incomplete pass, but this was one of the this was the theme of the day and almost every big obvious passing situation, they tried to simulate some sort of pressure like this again to make golf and anybody would tell you the numbers bear this out. If Goff can sit there and pat the ball, he’s going to tear you up. if he just has to move a little bit, the numbers drop dramatically. Right? I’ve had defensive coordinators all over football tell me that and I think that was something that of course Brian Flores picked up on and realized that was a flaw of this Detroit Lions offense. So to clarify, this is the first simulated pressure of the game. This counts as a blitz, but to Chris’s point, yes, the Vikings blitzed on 25 of the 43 pass plays, but 44% of them were simulated pressure. So they’re not they’re not trying to allocate for a lost defender in cover. They’re not exposing themselves in the back end, which Goff can golf can do that. They’re scary that way. And what happened too with these blitzes and what they were doing with the blitz zone change and one blitz and one drop, they couldn’t pick it up. And then they start they stopped actually looking to throw the ball down the field cuz they were like, wait, they they’re kind of exposing our pass pro here. We got to figure something out. So then they went into, wait, let’s throw some screens. Let’s throw the short passing game. And Minnesota’s like, “Please, we love that.” Right? Fine. And yeah, so they got the best of both worlds. You’re pressuring golf, but you’re also keeping seven people in coverage all the time. And that if you want to beat Detroit that way, that’s good. Also, within that, it helped in the run game. It did because it just created chaos in the interior. And because those guys are a little bit bigger and slowooted, like we talked about in the interior part of the O line, they had a hard time kind of adjusting on the fly to some of the chaos being created. So, it helped with the run game as well. And then, you know, on top of that, I think at times when you’re a quarterback, you might have a run pass play called in the huddle, right? One, you check to the pass, right? And you’re thinking, yeah, there’s the linebackers looking like they’re going to blitz. They’re going to outnumber us in the run game. Boom, boom, boom. And you check to the pass and it’s like, oh no, they they played too deep and they blitzed. They rushed four, but they blitzed two up the middle and I checked to the pass and oh no, and now we’re kind of screwed that way. So, that’s where it was really brilliant by uh Brian Flores. Is that something Chris that when you start to figure out the simulated pressures as the game goes on, can you run away from it or is that just so hard to guess? You you you can third and four you can run on third. It’s risky, right? And they do like David Montgomery’s run that he fumbles in the early third quarter. They they blitz. They’re doing that and they said, “Wait, if you want to show this, we’re just going to keep you all smashed in there and we’ll toss it outside.” And now you get that. So, yes, there is some of that. I I think the the the answer when you’re getting interior O line or interior blitzes a lot of the times is let’s get out on the edge. Let’s get the screen pass game going a little bit right and do that. Now this is one where they went to the screen pass game but the problem was is like they’re not really blitzing. It’s still it’s still four man and those two guys on the defensive end that dropped out and you’re throwing a screen to the receiver outside. They’re already floating out that way anyway so they’re there to make the tackle. So, that didn’t work. And yeah, the run game is certainly an area where you can look at to go, let’s get on the edge, run, toss cracks, to toss sweeps, and do that. But the big thing is, and a really high functioning offense, okay? Right. Let’s just say uh McVey, let’s just say Brady and Bellich in their prime. They would never let those blitzes ruin their game plan. Never. Never. And that’s where they’re going to have to go back to the lab a little bit to go, wait, how can we figure out not to leave Jir Gibbs on one of these guys? How can we figure out when the DNS do drop out that we can still get our own lineman on these blitzing linebackers instead of like we got one lineman on the blitzing linebacker and now we have our pass catching back who we want to get the ball in space here. He’s blocking and that’s not good for us. So they got to figure out ways to do that. Can they figure out ways to free release everybody? send out five again because they’re only rushing four. But yes, you’re going to have to go back to school on how you’re going to get, you know, dictate your pass protection plan against something like this. And that’s what they’re going to have to figure out. But I know under working under Josh McDaniels and everything uh and and any high functioning offense I was around before a really good offensive coordinator go man we can’t be keeping extra guys in to block and it’s a fourman rush and doing all this and they got seven like we’re never going to get anybody open handcuffs you’re off right we got to find a way to get our five on their four no matter what it is and if that means more slide pass protection maybe that’s what it has to be cuz they’re kind of a man pass protect team too maybe this is a game where they should have gone, you know what, let’s let’s slide everybody one way and just have our back off the edge and oh, if that defensive end drops back, you just couldn’t release. But at least we have everybody sliding and we can block the four the four guys rushing now. So, there’s some things you could do there, but you know, it’s tough. And how to dissect it and pass it all off is really going to take some work for Detroit to figure that out. And they might maybe have to get Jameson Williams involved as a decoy more. If you start doing the motions and the fake jet sweeps and and I know he had a better game in this game statistically. Yes. But just the threat of him on the edges. I mean it’s just that’s something that John for the good John Morton has done in a brutal situation. Like being the guy after Ben Johnson that’s that’s a terrible spot, right? It feels like J Mo is the one guy it’s like he’s being he’s got he’s being left in the dust. Ben Johnson knew exactly what to do with that. They they have to find a few more ways to just game plan shots down the field for Jameson Williams. But not with two minutes though. Exactly. Right. It has to, you know, that’s where Ben Johnson did it. Ben Johnson had three or four plays every game where you’re like, oh, he’s got to you reverse with Jame Williams. He’s got a you screen with him. He’s got a double move for him. And then he has like two or three play actions where it’s like you either cover him deep or Aman Ross St. Brown or Leaport are going to be wide open over the middle. Which one do you want to choose? Right. That’s where he was really good. That’s not going on right now. That’s again what I was trying to say early on. It’s this offense is really good. But there’s Yeah. Is it as creative and as game planning as it once was? No. And I bet you Brian Flores, that’s where he felt more comfortable about doing some crazy stuff because he’s like there’s a lot to worry about with Detroit, but not as much to worry about as there used to be. And I can take some calculated risk like we’ve talked about time after time after time. Yeah. This was a master class from Flores. I want to go inside the notebook here, Chris, because this was really like the the big the thesis here. anytime they think this might be a pass, two out of three plays, someone is blitzing up the middle, right? And then what Jir Gibbs, he can’t block blitzers, getting overpowered. Uh, and this teams are going to try the teams are going to try him for him now. Like you got to try test him if he’s on the field. They’re they’re going to go, “Wait, one of the best ways to take Jir Gibbs out of the passing run as hard as he can is yeah, blitz him and make him block and let’s see what happens there.” I think that’s the thing, right? So yeah, that that that’s and then they did try to pivot to David Montgomery a little bit who of course is better in those situations. But the problem is is like oh no this time they didn’t blitz anybody and now he’s looking and oh man man Jir Gibbs on the checkdown would have been really effective on this play right so they got stuck in between as far as what to do there. Now, they did a great job of like, you know, like I would what I would love you to look up how much did they play man coverage, right, in the football game. I feel like maybe when they all out blitz, they play man. Other than that, I I I don’t feel like they played man very much at all, right? So, that was one really big thing for them, right? And then, you know, yeah, not much. Not much. So, you’re right. They ran cover zero eight times and that’s their allout blitzes. They ran cover one six times, but then it was all cover two, cover three, quarters, and a lot of cover six. Lot of cover. 16% of the time they ran cover six, right? So, which is like Flores will Yeah, Flores will do that for sure. If there’s combinations he doesn’t like, right? There’s certain things there. Cover six, it’s like, hey, wait, the strong side safety and cover six can get involved in the run game a little bit, right? were protecting probably for Jameson Williams on the outside on the other side with a cover two safety to kind of get over that coverage and then they probably read it a little bit to where like it helps when you play that coverage with deep crossers and stuff like that and I think that’s probably why they lived in cover six a little bit there but yeah they didn’t give them many chances to throw deep shots down the football field and then what’s happened is then they flustered Gooff a little bit with the pressures and getting him off the spot and you know hey he’s still made some great throws. And man, did they make some third and fourth down conversions where you’re like, Minnesota’s got him. They called the perfect defense. Oh my god, he broke a tackle. Golf still made the throw. Whatever. I mean, they still make some damn plays that way, which is incredible. But what the pressure did, especially early on, it sped up golf for the rest of the game a little bit. There was plays where you go, wait, there’s there’s nobody there. And he was kind of moving around in the pocket like he had to move, like somebody was there. And I was like, no, no, they just rushed their normal four. They’re playing Tampa, too. like you didn’t need to move and get off your or he felt somebody maybe blitz off the edge and it’s like he was blocked and now he rolled out to the right and it was like he you were good. You didn’t have to. But that’s again what early pressure can do to a quarterback’s mental clock and that’s where Brian Flores knew that as well. Yo yo yo, thanks for watching homies. We are now in the NFL season here on Chris Sims Unbutton. Hit subscribe to get our weekly picks, game recaps, film deep dives, and much much more. Thanks again for watching. Subscribe, rate, review. Peace out.

Chris Simms and Connor Rogers dive into how Brian Flores and the Vikings contained the Lions’ high-flying offense in a crucial Week 9 win, where Minnesota dialed up the pressure on Jared Goff & Co. #NBCSports #NFL #ChrisSimmsUnbuttoned #Vikings #lions
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Unpacking Brian Flores’ defensive ‘masterclass’ against Lions | Chris Simms Unbuttoned | NFL on NBC
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