Brian Flores Agrees to Contract as Vikings DC After Year on Steelers’ Staff

The Minnesota Vikings have found their next defensive coordinator.

The NFC North team hired Brian Flores for the vacant position, a move first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

The timing of the news was notable because it came shortly after Mike Klis of 9News Denver reported Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton planned to interview Flores for the AFC West team’s defensive coordinator position on Tuesday.

Flores was with the New England Patriots in various assistant roles from 2004 through 2018 and helped the team win four Super Bowls. He parlayed that experience into the head coaching position with the Miami Dolphins from 2019 through 2021.

He was fired from Miami with a 24-25 record that saw him improve from 5-11 in his first year to 10-6 in his second and 9-8 in his third.

Yet that wasn’t enough to keep his job, and he filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and its teams alleging racist hiring practices and discrimination.

Among Flores’ assertions was an allegation that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss to help the team’s tanking process in 2019 and allegations that the Broncos and New York Giants brought him in for “sham” interviews simply to satisfy the Rooney Rule.

He said Patriots head coach Bill Belichick mistakenly sent him a text meant for Brian Daboll congratulating him for becoming the Giants head coach, which was notable because New York had not yet interviewed Flores.

Flores worked this past season as a defensive assistant for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He joins a Vikings team that needs to make significant strides on the defensive side of the ball to go from a playoff squad to one that can realistically compete for a Super Bowl. While they went 13-4 and won the NFC North, they also finished an abysmal 31st in the league in yards allowed per game and 30th in points allowed per game.

Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson and the rest of the offense often overcame the defensive woes during the regular season, but they couldn’t in the Wild Card Round loss to the Giants.

Saquon Barkley ran for two touchdowns, and Daniel Jones threw for 301 yards and two touchdowns while adding 78 yards on the ground. The performance exposed Minnesota’s poor defense and prevented it from competing for a title.

It will be up to Flores to attempt to change that in 2023.