Footballguy Sigmund Bloom often opines that there is no longer an information advantage in fantasy football. Increased media coverage of the NFL scouting combine, breaking news on social media, and advanced analytics are all equalizers in fantasy football competition.
Coverage of skill-position players is a daily exercise. NFL defenses, however, do not enjoy the same limelight. Offense is to the big city what defense is to the small town. News of defenders travels more slowly and is less sensationalized. Complex data for analysis are harder to come by. IDP fantasy gamers find themselves unaware of important changes to player values hiding in plain sight.
Fantasy gamers drafted perennial DB1 Jordan Poyer with confidence last summer, only to be disappointed. He played deep too often to compile tackles. A year ago, Josey Jewell, Jordan Hicks, and Frankie Luvu were afterthoughts at best. Each finished among fantasy football's top 24 linebackers.
Clues foreshadowing these revelations exist. This series interprets changes in rosters, player contracts, personnel groupings at organized team activities (OTAs), and insights new coordinators will offer into defensive philosophy. The goal is to read a new defense and anticipate fluctuations in IDP fantasy values.
Changing Schemes
Bloom also speaks of talent, situation, and opportunity as the three legs of a tripod that supports fantasy value. Defensive scheme changes can be so impactful to fantasy value that they constitute a fourth leg. Each season, roughly a quarter of the NFL's teams hire new defensive coordinators.
Reading the New Defense: Philadelphia Eagles addressed the change in nomenclature from “4-3” to “3-4.” Some fantasy football leagues operate on sites that rely on team depth charts for position designations. Such leagues experience drastic shifts in player values based on team nomenclature while the duties of affected players change subtly, if at all. Footballguy Gary Davenport investigates position redesignation in his piece, The Effect of True Position on IDP.
This article is the fourth in a series examining the effects on defenders' fantasy values portended by new defensive schemes. Each piece further contemplates personnel moves and comments about them from the coaching staff and front office.
The most recent edition of this series covered the Dolphins and their new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. The two prior pieces contemplated former Fangio assistants' impacts in Philadelphia and Carolina. The Vikings fired another former Fangio assistant and replaced him with Brian Flores for 2023.
Flores' last stop was Pittsburgh as an assistant. Previously, he rebuilt Miami's defense from 2019 to 2021 as head coach. The 2022 Dolphins ran a version of his defense after his departure.
Flores will bring his hallmarks of aggressiveness and hybrid fronts to Minnesota. His blitzing and man coverage will starkly contrast with Ed Donatell's conservative defense last year. Flores' 2021 Dolphins blitzed at more than twice the rate of Donatell's 2022 Vikings. Donatell often sat back in zone coverage, while Flores prefers man-to-man coverage. Donatell was criticized for his conservatism in coverage, but he seemed to think it necessary to support weaknesses in his secondary. As a result of these soft coverage shells, Pro Football Focus' season-long grade for cornerback Cameron Dantzler hovered around 70 when he was benched. In contrast, Flores leans on single-high coverages, often with seven players in the box.
Defensive Fronts
Brian Flores' defense is yet another covered in this series based on 3-4 architecture. Matt Fries of ZoneCoverage.com covers the scheme in his four-part series. K.T. Smith of SB Nation contemplated Flores' varied fronts before his arrival in Pittsburgh.
Vikings Interior Defenders
Fries considers Minnesota defenders' fits in Flores' defense in his first installment. Fries, based in the upper Midwest, might be more optimistic than this writer. He envisions Khyiris Tonga as a starter. The sharp shift in philosophy and weak roster likely means the new defensive coordinator won't be able to fully install his scheme in 2023.
The snap leader among interior defensive linemen should be Harrison Phillips, whom the Vikings signed away from Buffalo in free agency in Spring 2022. He's never emerged as an impact pass-rusher, but his run defense should lead to a productive season in a scheme that vaulted Miami's Christian Wilkins toward the top of fantasy rankings. Phillips is a sleeper for gamers, starting two interior defenders each week. On platforms using conventional positional designations, however, Phillips might be classified as a defensive end.
Edge Defenders
The linebacker tag slapped on the one-time top-scoring fantasy defensive end in football should remain in place for outside linebacker Danielle Hunter for the second consecutive year. Former Saints defensive end Marcus Davenport will join Hunter in the position group. He could lose the valuable ‘DE' tag on platforms using conventional position designations.
Both players underwhelmed in 2022. Davenport's fall from grace in New Orleans and tumble down fantasy ranks is well documented. The drop-off from 9.0 to 0.5 quarterback sacks year over year is hard to ignore.
Hunter's total of 10.5 sacks masked an inauspicious season by his standards. He recorded an unremarkable pass-rush win rate despite rarely facing double teams in 2022.
Davenport will face fewer double teams in 2023 than he did in the Saints' more conservative 4-3 defense. Flores' frequent blitzing should support his impressive conversion of speed to power.
Marcus Davenport with a runway is a bad sign for Zach Wilson. 😳 pic.twitter.com/EKCXSdHff9
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) December 13, 2021
Building Out Coverages
Brian Flores deploys safeties that can hit and cover, especially man-to-man. His linebackers must be able to turn and run with running backs or get upfield as rushers. His cornerbacks need ice water in their veins. Fries' third installment covers Flores' coverages at length.
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Vikings Linebackers
Jerome Baker evolved into an unusual player under Flores' guidance. He annually rushed more than nearly every other off-ball linebacker and routinely played at the flanks of the box or beyond its boundaries. He was a key component in Flores' tag pressures.
Brian Asamoah fits in Baker's role as a similar player but a superior athlete. He's best suited to lead the team in snaps at the second level alongside veteran Jordan Hicks.
The Cardinals tried for years to replace Hicks because he couldn't turn and run in Vance Joseph's aggressive, man-coverage defense. Arizona's lack of success had more to do with their draft picks than Hicks. Ed Donatell decided last year that Asamoah should play ahead of Hicks. Flores will reach the same conclusion.
Safeties
Camryn Bynum returns as the Vikings' deep safety in 2023 after surprisingly holding off the rookie Lewis Cine. The Vikings' first-round pick might still have the upside Flores needs to unlock his defense.
Veteran Harrison Smith returns after taking a pay cut to play for Flores. The new defensive coordinator should use him as aggressively as Mike Zimmer and Leslie Frazier, each of whom elevated Smith to multiple DB1 seasons. Smith will attack the line of scrimmage as much as ever in 2023.
Vikings FS Harrison Smith rolling down into the box (thread):
— Coach Dan Casey (@CoachDanCasey) December 22, 2017
Edge blitz tracking down outside zone. Wow! 😳 pic.twitter.com/6xhyZR3y74
Cornerbacks
The Vikings' second-round pick of the 2022 draft isn't faring much better than their first-rounder. Despite making a living on an island at Clemson, Booth is competing for reps with middle-round picks of the past two drafts.
Byron Murphy joined the team last spring in unrestricted free agency. He'll start on the outside in base defense and step into the slot in sub-packages. He might be the most certain bet of all NFL cornerbacks to man this inside/outside role. It cements his place in preseason fantasy ranks as a CB1.
Vikings 2023 Outlook
The Vikings' defense under Brian Flores will be as consistent as that of their quarterback Kirk Cousins. In some games, aggressiveness will translate into sacks and turnovers that send opponents reeling. In others, they'll allow chunk plays that Ed Donatell unsuccessfully tried so hard to prevent.
Two of the team's most productive fantasy assets from 2022 are gone. Longtime middle linebacker Eric Kendricks was cut and landed with the Chargers. Jordan Hicks will slide into his spot; however, he's a proverbial “two-down thumper” in Flores' multiple defense of five-man fronts and dime secondaries. Hicks might yet eclipse 100 tackles if opponents keep the Vikings on their heels all season.
Sophomore Brian Asamoah II will start at weakside linebacker, a role that 31-year-old Hicks no longer has the athleticism to play in a Flores defense. Asamoah will be an inefficient tackler for Flores just as Jerome Baker was, averaging around one tackle in ten snaps. The sophomore's upside is in big-play scoring formats where sacks, tackles for loss, and passes defensed matter more.
The Vikings dealt Za'Darius Smith to the Browns and will lean on Marcus Davenport, who signed a one-year prove-it deal opposite Danielle Hunter. The former 14th-overall pick of the Saints has a wide range of outcomes for fantasy gamers and might best be considered similar to mid-career Jadeveon Clowney. Both players might have hit their ceilings with 9 sacks as plus athletes who never refined their game.
Danielle Hunter's history of serious injuries just might have shaved off the elite upside he demonstrated annually. Hunter wants his pay increased to that of an elite pass rusher. Trade winds surround him, but compensation seems unlikely to meet the team's or the player's expectations.
If Hunter departs, the Vikings might be in the market to sign a similar, lesser player like Yannick Ngakoue, who once enjoyed a cup of coffee in the Twin Cities with a previous regime. The balance of the depth chart, recent draft picks on rookie deals, has failed to deliver options to start. Their roles should be limited to five-man fronts and relief of starters for Flores in 2023.
Interior defensive lineman Harrison Phillips set career highs of 59 tackles and 694 snaps in 2022. He has room to grow in both categories, given the thin depth chart, and his tackling efficiency should increase in Flores' defense. The frequent blitzing and man coverage means that linemen can't afford to let ball carriers get behind them.
Cornerback Byron Murphy should be a target in CB-required leagues and could be worth a look as depth in formats with three starting defenders at each level. He should be able to improve upon his average of 10 passes defensed per 17 games. Flores' defense aims to deny pass catchers the football.
Perennial top-25 fantasy defensive back Harrison Smith is shockingly undervalued in early drafts. He's well-positioned to add another DB1 season to his resume but resides outside the first 20 defensive backs selected by average draft position in best-ball leagues hosted by The IDP Show.
Analysis at Footballguys aims to equip fantasy gamers with the confidence to acquire players for their rosters and deploy them on Sundays. Readers are welcome to contact and follow this writer @DynastyTripp on Twitter.