The Minnesota Vikings are blitzing like no team has in two decades, and Brian Flores has no interest in easing off. The defense allowed only three points in Chicago last week. Sunday’s problem is the guy waiting in Tampa. Baker Mayfield has faced a Flores-led defense twice and won both times.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Vikings have blitzed on 74% of opponent dropbacks this season. No other team is above 45%, and ESPN Research says it’s the highest rate by any team through two games since tracking began in 2006. Minnesota already led the league last year when Flores blitzed at a 48% rate. That wasn’t the ceiling, apparently.
Baker Mayfield has solved this before
Schefter also noted that Mayfield is 2-0 against Flores-led defenses, with five touchdown passes and one interception. The first win came with Cleveland in 2019, when Flores was coaching the Dolphins. The second was the 2023 opener in Minneapolis, when Mayfield threw two touchdown passes in a 20-17 win in his first start for the Buccaneers. Two games is a small sample. Still, he’s one of the few quarterbacks who hasn’t flinched against this scheme.
Flores isn’t about to blink, either. “I tell our guys all the time, if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down a certain way,” Flores told reporters Tuesday. “We’re going to go down blitzing people.” The pressure has been real, too. Dallas Turner leads the NFL with 20 quarterback pressures, and Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles admitted the disguises are what make Minnesota so hard to prepare for. “They have very good controlled chaos, but they understand where it’s going,” Bowles said this week.
The catch is that blitzing this often leaves holes behind it. Jordan Love found plenty of them in the first half of Week 1, throwing for 199 yards before Minnesota’s pressure finally took over late. The Bucs are 0-2, but Mayfield’s also dangerous when a play breaks down, and Flores himself called him “much more elusive than people probably give him credit for.” If Mayfield hits a couple of those early, the Vikings will find out how committed Flores really is. Our guess? He keeps sending them anyway.
