'Aggressive' but 'not reckless': Let this define the Brian Flores era with Vikings

With Brian Flores flanked by Kevin O'Connell on Wednesday — and both dishing out the word "aggressive" like it was candy — Vikings fans might have become giddy with visions of all-out blitzes and a never-ending succession of feast-or-famine pursuits of quarterbacks.

But digging into numbers from recent years shows that we should perhaps be more heartened by the qualifier Flores added to describe how he wants to play: "Aggressive ... not reckless."

Blitzing in and of itself is far from a guarantee of success in the modern NFL — something I talked about on Friday's Daily Delivery podcast in the midst of dissecting the five most important things said in that introductory news conference.

Being aggressive can take many forms, and in some ways is more of an identity than a blueprint. Let's look at blitzing, in particular, within that context.

A criticism of Ed Donatell's defense with the 2022 Vikings was that it was not aggressive enough — something that showed up in multiple ways, including a lack of blitzing.

Per Pro Football Reference, the Vikings blitzed just 18.9% of the time last season, No. 24 in the NFL. That mark actually went up some toward the end of the season as O'Connell urged tweaks to that side of the ball.

But blitzing more wasn't a cure-all. Donatell's defense still gave up plenty of points late in the year, including 31 (to go with 431 yards) in a season-ending playoff loss to the Giants. Would more blitzing throughout the year have helped? That's debatable.

The Giants blitzed more than any team in the league but had the NFL's fourth-worst defense, per Football Outsiders' DVOA metric. The Cardinals blitzed the second-most of any NFL team last year. They also gave up the second-most points.

Conversely, excellent defenses like the 49ers and Bills barely blitzed more than the Vikings, while the Jets — No. 5 in defensive DVOA — blitzed less than any team.

If you blitz too much, or without a good plan, you will give up big plays and a lot of points. That's where the "not reckless" part of the Flores philosophy comes into play. It's the same way on offense, where being aggressive doesn't mean throwing downfield every play.

But Flores also wants his defensive players to have fun, and most players will tell you it's more fun to play aggressively than passively.

If the Vikings can add a few new players and Flores can put his stamp on the defense, a turnaround is possible.

And one thing is for sure: Not trying something new on defense would have been the most reckless choice O'Connell could have made.