Kevin SeifertDec 27, 2025, 06:00 AM ET

CloseKevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL at ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for over 20 years, joining ESPN in 2008. He was previously a beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

MINNEAPOLIS — Brian Flores delivered a résumé game as the football world watched on Christmas Day. The question now is simple: What will he do with it?

Flores’ contract as the Minnesota Vikings‘ defensive coordinator will expire after this season. NFL rules allow coordinators to break their deals if they are offered a head coaching job, but Flores’ situation will allow him to explore his coordinator options around the league as well. There are no indications that either Flores or the Vikings are eager to part ways, and Flores enjoys wide latitude and significant personnel influence in Minnesota. But the franchise must brace for the possibility that it will lose one of its top assets.

“He’s one of the smartest guys when it comes to schemes that I’ve ever been around,” cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. said. “So he can’t go anywhere. He’s not allowed to go anywhere. No way. I know that everything happens for a reason, and it’s always God’s plan. But I definitely do not want him to go anywhere. I re-signed here last offseason and told him that he’s one of the best coaches that I’ve been around, and that I wanted to come back and play for him. I don’t want him to go anywhere.”

Flores continues to operate one of the NFL’s most unique schemes, one that has evolved this season to incorporate safety Harrison Smith as a quasi-playcaller on the field. On Thursday, the Vikings dismantled the Detroit Lions‘ offense, forcing six turnovers, sacking quarterback Jared Goff five times and producing a defensive success rate of 71% — their second highest in a game since Flores arrived at the start of the 2023 season.

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Amid a season lost long ago to poor quarterback play, the Vikings have evened their record at 8-8. Their defense, which ranks No. 8 in the NFL in defensive EPA per play, is the primary catalyst. In retrospect, coach Kevin O’Connell and Flores flipped a switch during the Week 6 bye as they prepared to reinsert quarterback J.J. McCarthy into the starting lineup.

“Our dialogue, was, ‘Hey, let’s just make sure we’re being as aggressive as possible,'” O’Connell said. “And that’s how [Flores] is by nature. But then also the element of Harrison being able to have a role in what we ultimately play when the ball gets snapped. And he’s got an unbelievable feel of the system. … He’s really out there playing a game within the game. And it’s been spectacular to watch.

“But you learn about each and every year. Teams are different and you learn that you might have to win different ways.”

After blitzing at a rate of 31.4% before their bye week, the Vikings have blitzed on 51.8% of their defensive snaps since. But Flores has done it in new ways and combinations, in part by relying on Smith to apply the knowledge he has absorbed in his 14-year career to break playcalling tendencies and capitalize on what coaches can’t always see from the sideline.

Smith missed the Vikings’ first two games because of a personal health issue that arose during training camp, and he didn’t get back to his full-time role until Week 7 — the same time the Vikings elevated their aggressiveness. Since that point, Flores has regularly — not on every play, but many — given Smith the authority to change coverages and blitz alignments before the snap.

“Early in the year we were figuring out exactly what our individual roles were,” Smith said. “And there was a lot of good, but it wasn’t quite as tight. And then we’ve gotten maybe a little more aggressive in some things. And I think it’s more just the belief in that. Without getting too into detail, it’s a scheme that most guys have not come up playing with these rules and these techniques and stuff.”

NFL coaches often give quarterbacks a series of plays to choose from on offense, but it’s less common on defense. Speaking earlier this month about the arrangement, Flores said he first thought about the possibility while coaching now-retired safety Devin McCourty when they were with the New England Patriots in the late 2010s.

“I wasn’t allowed to do it,” Flores said, a reference to the final say that Patriots coach Bill Belichick retained on the scheme. “But that’s kind of where it came to my mind, where if ever in that situation, a situation where we could do it, I would try to do it.”

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Smith’s decisions have all been within the scheme. He referred to it as making “sense for the totality of the beliefs.” But Flores hoped that it would also make it harder for teams to anticipate the Vikings’ strategy.

“Every playcaller has tendencies,” Flores said, “You do this on third down. You do this once they cross the 50-yard line. You do this on first down. Every one of us has got some. I know I have some and I’m constantly trying to break those tendencies. And when you have a player who can go out there and make checks or make calls, it’s like having another playcaller out there. You can have my tendencies, but you don’t have his. And so that’s an added kind of layer there. It’s probably kind of out there a little bit, but it’s something that I think is pretty cool.

“And I think the players, they see it differently than we can from the sideline. There’s mannerisms. There’s alignments. There’s things that we really can’t see. Coaching is about giving these guys information and allowing them to take it, have ownership on it, and then execute. And so I think it’s really good that we’re able to do some of those things.”

The connection culminated Thursday with one of the best games in Smith’s career. He blitzed nine times, tied for his second most ever in a game. He sacked Goff once, batted down two of his passes and intercepted another.

Smith himself might be down to his final weeks with the Vikings, having considered retirement for the past several offseasons. He will turn 37 in February and many people in and around the organization have assumed 2025 would be his final season. He declined to comment on his future Thursday night.

But as the Vikings look this offseason for ways to return to the playoffs, the idea of doing it without Smith and/or Flores seems daunting.