Brian Flores‘ contract with the Vikings expires this offseason, per CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones.
Unsurprisingly, the team would like to keep Flores in Minnesota, according to Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network. However, Flores is expected to receive interest in other head coaching jobs. He interviewed with the Bears, Jaguars, and Jets last offseason and has likely raised his stock further with the Vikings’ strong defensive showing this year.
Flores, 44, came aboard in 2023 and his unit finished 13th in scoring and 16th in total defense. The next year, they ranked fifth in the former and stayed at 16th in the latter. This season, the Vikings have surrendered just 4.8 yards per play and 292.7 yards per game, the fifth-lowest marks in the league, while their 20.6 points per game ranks 10th.
Flores’ blitz-heavy defense is uniquely suited to disrupt opposing passing games, which have averaged just 168.8 yards per game against Minnesota. His players have spoken glowingly of both the creativity of his scheme and his ability to implement and teach it.
Perceptions of Flores around the league may have changed in the wake of the Dolphins’ struggles over the last few years, Jones also noted. Clashes with owner Stephen Ross and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa signaled that Flores’ personality might not be conducive to a head coaching job, but it become clear that he was not the only – and perhaps not even the biggest – problem in Miami.
Flores’ ongoing class-action suit against the NFL and several teams is another factor in his candidacy for head coaching gigs. One of those teams is the Giants, who have one of the two current head coaching vacancies in the league, which immediately rules him out for that job. Others beyond the Titans’ could become available
I have to think the Steelers would take a long hard look at Flores if they decide that it’s time to move on from Mike Tomlin.
As a Browns fan, it blows my mind that a team that has not had a losing season in 22 years would even fathom canning their coach, but I guess when you’re good enough to lose in the wild card round every year, that gets frustrating.
Some coaches are victims of their own success. Expectations keep rising until they get to the point where fans expect near perfection and anything less is seen as failure.
The Steelers have a standard of winning the expansion Browns wouldnt know anything about. For Tomlin himself to accept this level of mediocrity is surprising but I feel he always hopes his team can get hot at the right time to at least get closer to the SB? He has to find the right young QB, if he does get retained but having Rodgers back another year will help …
Also a Browns fan and I agree. He’s definitely not a perfect coach (and the yearly Tomlin trap game seems like a real thing), but I don’t know if there’s anyone in the league better at getting more out of a roster.
This year’s roster is at least a little better, but for a few years now they’ve given him legitimately terrible rosters and he was still dragging them to nine wins. To me, it only makes sense for them to fire him if they’re going all in (selling the farm for a franchise quarterback, etc.) or tearing it down and rebuilding. Short of that, I don’t think there’s anyone out there that would bring them better results.
I don’t get how it’s Tomlin’s fault that the roster isn’t as good as fans would like. Fans blaming the head coach for the GM’s failures is always weird.
Tomlin has never had a losing season and u think they might want to replace him?? Wow
I don’t know why he wouldn’t get HC consideration. That whole other thing was blown way out of proportion. He deserves a shot when you consider the Geezer-Go Round is talking about Belicheck an Carroll like they’re worth something. They’re not.
He will, and it will most likely be Tampa or Tennessee in my humble opinion. I don’t see him going places with high dollar pass rush investment, like NYG or Las Vegas, because his scheme is so blitz dependent. He’d rather spend on DB’s because he so often leaves them on an island. I suppose Arizona and Atlanta would also possibly be on the list but they have much cloudier financial situations at the QB position.
You know, possible (likely) personality conflicts aside, you wonder if Flores would be entrusted with developing another young QB in Tennessee. Granted, Flores probably would have little to do with that individual aspect instead of an offensive coordinator, but that’s probably the biggest coaching related question with Flores as a hire. Tua, after all, came from the pro college program in the country, with professional expectations and a high level, professional style offense with Sarkesian as a coordinator. He should have been, at least practically, easy to coach. Instead, Flores may have turned him off somehow.
Tua’s current situation certainly will bias many observers to dismiss him, and he may very well have some blame, but as a coach who will likely receive a new rookie QB to develop, you have to be sure that the process will go according to plan. That’s the concern that you have to alleviate as an owner/manager, because if it doesn’t work, you’d have had prior history to weigh there.
I think a GM would have to be dopey to hire a defensive specialist like Fangio or Flores with the expectation that he will develop or fix a QB. This might be why so many good coordinators fail as head coaches. They’re asked to be a Swiss Army knife when they should just be allowed to do what they do best.
This is also why I’m not necessarily in favor of just hiring the best coordinators as head coaches. Scheming up plays is an incredible skill, but it’s a completely different skill to lead and manage an entire roster. There are probably average to mediocre coordinators out there that would be really good head coaches.
Josh McDaniels might go down as one of the best offensive coordinators of all time, but he’s had two chances to be a head coach and was terrible both times.
You wouldn’t hire a car mechanic to fix a plane. You wouldn’t hire a tax lawyer to handle a criminal case. As you stated, the skill sets often don’t overlap.