While the Vikings attempt to extend the expiring contract of defensive coordinator Brian Flores, it won’t matter if another team wants to hire him to be a head coach. It will matter if another team is thinking about hiring him as its next defensive coodinator.
There could be more than one. But one such team that is lurking is the Cowboys.
Dallas seems to be destined to fire defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, after a disastrous reunion year. (Never mind the fact that owner/G.M. Jerry Jones traded the defense’s best player 10 days before Week 1.) And the increasing chatter in league circles is that the Cowboys will be firmly in play for Flores.
The Vikings, we’re told, are keenly aware of the possibility. And while the Vikings should have exclusive rights to negotiate with Flores until his contract expires, we all know by now that tampering is as rampant in pro football as flopping mouthpieces that never seem to make their way into players’ mouths.
Jerry Jones loves to talk a big game. Will he put his money where his mouth is? He has a low-key reputation for being cheap. Rex Ryan claimed last year that he would have been hired instead of Mike Zimmer to be the defensive coordinator for the final years of the Mike McCarthy regime, but Jones “couldn’t pony up the money.”
Flores could be the winner, either way. If Jones decides to give true credence to his periodic claim about the size of the check he’d write to win a Super Bowl, he’ll put real cash on the table. Which could spark a bidding war for Flores, between Dallas, Minnesota, and whoever else may decide to try to hire him.
The other factor in all of this is whether the Vikings truly want Flores back, or whether they want to create the impression that they tried to keep him. As we learned when canvassing high-level personnel with multiple teams about Flores’s head-coaching prospects in the coming hiring cycle, his Belichickian style hasn’t always meshed with Minnesota nice.
Still, coach Kevin O’Connell will (or should) have plenty of say in the final decision as to how much the Vikings will pay to keep Flores. Given O’Connell’s gentler touch when it comes to working with others, Flores provides balance. And if/when the Vikings get their quarterback position figured out, the upside in Minnesota could be higher than it is in Dallas.
For now, it’s fitting that the two franchises could be squaring off for Flores. It’s the 50th anniversary of the most memorable, and controversial, on-field meeting of the Cowboys and the Vikings. The question for now could be whether either team ends up making a successful Hail Mary play for Flores.