How safety Josh Metellus became a leading voice for the Vikings defense

Before safety Josh Metellus was voted a Vikings team captain, before he ever delivered one of his weekly pregame speeches, he was an 18-year-old freshman in a “Public Speaking 101″ course at the University of Michigan.

Even then, in 2016, Metellus didn’t need much help public speaking. He had been a vocal leader for his South Florida high school. And now he saw a chance to leverage his rhetorical talent into an easy role in a successful group project.

“I told the group I know how most of you guys are, like I know a lot of people don’t like public speaking,” he said. “But for me, that’s my specialty. If you guys do all the work, I promise you I’ll do the whole presentation.”

Metellus, now a 26-year-old, do-it-all Vikings safety, doesn’t recall the source material. He barely knew it then.

“I don’t need to see you do it,” Metellus told the group. “All I gotta do is stand up there, look at the slide and I can just go.”

“The whole group got an A.”

As Metellus’ importance ascends on the field for the Vikings, so does his voice behind the scenes.

He is the most versatile defender within coordinator Brian Flores’ mad-scientist schemes. Off the field, he breaks down every huddle in the defensive back meeting room as well as every pregame huddle so far this season.

The pregame huddle, especially, is a sacred message in football circles.

“The thing is, like, if you’re doing a bad job, you’re going to get kicked out,” said right tackle Brian O’Neill, another team captain. “He hasn’t got kicked out.”

Teammates relate to Metellus‘ story. He’s a 2020 sixth-round pick who was cut after his first training camp. He’s a husband to Haley and father to Joshua and the oldest of six siblings. He’s a special teamer who developed into a defensive stalwart, and the comedic host of weekly “Tell Us With Metellus” videos in which he gets teammates to open up their personalities.

“I’ve definitely been finding my voice,” Metellus said. “A lot of that has to do with the organization putting that trust and faith in me. Every year, I’ve felt more and more love.”

Metellus’ rise can be traced to his intelligence, rare position flexibility and timely plays like the punch-out forced fumble on Lions running back David Montgomery in an Oct. 20 loss.

When Flores replaced Ed Donatell in 2023, Metellus was a special teamer with minimal defensive experience. But Metellus, a self-described football maniac, studied five Dolphins games that Flores coached. He liked what he saw, especially how many defensive backs played.

“First day [Flores] was here, I made sure I was in the building,” Metellus said. “I went into his office to see him, talk to him. Up on his board, I see all the stuff written down, it matches what I watched on tape. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to play.’ ”

Secondary players are taught every position under Flores, but Metellus aligned in various spots during the first spring practices simply by volunteering when a teammate needed a breather. He impressed coaches by knowing exactly what to do at new positions in a new playbook. He earned a new two-year, $8 million deal before the 2023 opener, a payment fitting of a special teams ace.

Then Flores’ first game plan hit him like a ton of bricks.

He was going to play — a lot.

“We see the call sheet,” Metellus said, “and I see I’m in on that, I’m in on that, I’m in on that, too. I’m looking around like, ‘Am I going to be starting?’ ”

Metellus has since developed an argument for another pay raise. He has rarely left the field under Flores, playing at least 71% defensive snaps in all 27 games together so far. Each of those games he has served as one of eight team captains.

This year, coaches turned to Metellus when injuries sidelined inside linebackers Ivan Pace Jr. and Blake Cashman. For the first time in his career, Metellus spent extended time at linebacker, flowing with the lines and defending the run. He added practice responsibilities, joining the linebackers in pass-rush and run-defense drills.

“I’d say, not a light bulb went off, but he’s playing like a linebacker,” Flores said. “Seeing, making run reads, setting edges when that’s the case and taking on blockers, taking on guards, dealing with pullers.

“He’s really doing a nice job there,” Flores added. “One play he’s playing linebacker, the next play he’s at [slot corner]. I’m sure it’s hard to target him offensively. Next play he’s playing safety. So, we try to move him around as much as we can. … We’ll keep [blitzing] him.”

This season, Metellus hadn’t given up a touchdown in coverage until last week, when the Titans’ Nick Westbrook-Ikhine scored a 98-yard TD on a surprising pass Will Levis threw from his own end zone.

“He should’ve aligned deeper,” said Daronte Jones, the Vikings defensive backs coach. “He knew that right away when he came off the field.”

It was a rare error for Metellus, who’s developed into a trusted veteran on the NFL’s fourth-ranked scoring defense. He’s responsible for handling pre-snap checks, such as passing off a blitzing assignment to a teammate based on how they’ve read the offense.

“When he’s out there, he’s thinking like a coach,” Jones said. “We joke all the time. We always say, ‘Josh, when you’re coaching in a few years.’ … Whether he admits it or not, but when his time is done, he’s going to be one of these other guys that you’ve seen who have played in the league a while that’s now a coordinator in this league. He has that potential.”

He isn’t admitting it.

“I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble,” Metellus said, “but I don’t know if I could do those long hours.”

As Metellus has earned more playing time, he has earned a bigger voice.

He says the words that break down the huddle in the defensive back meeting room, which includes two potential Hall of Famers in safety Harrison Smith and cornerback Stephon Gilmore.

Metellus said he always looks first to the stoic Smith.

“Like, ‘You want in?’ But when 22 wants to do something,” Metellus said, referring to Smith’s jersey number, “he does it.”

Metellus is given that respect after years of improving and putting himself out there. He approached Kevin O’Connell during their first camp together in 2022, taking up the head coach on his offer for players to speak to the team. Metellus wanted to tell his story as an NFL longshot, a former three-star recruit who was a late-round draft pick.

“His vocal leadership is something, quite honestly, I’m not really great at,” said Smith, a fellow team captain. “Having him, especially in our [defensive back] room, has been awesome. He’s always going to be the first one to speak up when we need it. He leads by example, but he also says the right things when we need to hear them. It’s just in his nature.”

“When I came into the league, I had a coach that told me that it doesn’t always have to be the guy you think it is,” Smith said. “It’s not always, like, Ray Lewis.”

Metellus said he’s spoken at various colleges, camps and seminars, including a mental health panel at St. Thomas this summer.

But he gets the most speaking time in the pregame huddle every Sunday, when he says nothing is prepared or written down.

“I’ve had different people tell me different motivational things, give me little things here and there that maybe will come up in those speeches,” Metellus said. “But for the most part, it’s whatever the vibe is for the team. Do we need energy? Do we need to focus? I’m just feeling the vibes.”

Metellus’ voice has been amplified as the host of a weekly video called “Tell Us With Metellus,” in which he and a camera operator, typically Vikings producer Maleah Pearson, go around the locker room with a question of the day. They can be thought provoking, revealing or funny. They’re in the spirit of former Vikings edge rusher Brian Robison’s “96 Questions,” which began in 2015 and came back as recently as 2023.

A random night at Disneyland this spring helped revive the fan-favorite social media bit. Metellus was on a family vacation and was itching to talk about the NFL draft’s quarterbacks. He’d studied them on his own, knowing the Vikings needed one. So he hopped on social media, where fans got him thinking about starting a podcast. That led to a conversation with the team’s entertainment network.

“We knew he was good on camera,” Pearson said. “We heard he maybe wanted to do more stuff like that. And obviously ‘96 Questions’ was such a hit, so it was like what can we make for Josh?”

This year’s questions have included: What was your welcome to the NFL moment? Who is the most famous person in your phone? What’s the world record you think you can beat? What did you get away with as a kid? What picture is on your phone’s home screen?

Robison has seen the videos from his home in Texas, and he approves.

“I definitely think he has a knack for the camera,” said Robison, who played 180 games for the Vikings between 2007 and 2017. “The biggest thing that gets forgotten is the relationship with the teammates: the trust, respect and relatability. In order for these things to work and really get people to open up, that has to be there.”

One locker room favorite involved O’Connell, who was asked by Metellus about his “welcome to the NFL” moment. O’Connell revealed what Hall of Famer and Vikings legend Randy Moss thought of him when the quarterback showed up for his first Patriots camp in 2008.

“I walked into the huddle and I stuttered through about three, four play calls,” O’Connell said. “And Randy Moss decided he wasn’t gonna take any reps with me. He said ‘ah, blank no’ and left the huddle.”

Players loved Metellus’ investigative work.

“He’s got to get some more coaches involved,” Smith said.

“Yeah, I tried to get Flo,” Metellus said.

But?

“We had a bad practice that day,” Metellus said. “So, I was like, ‘Nah.’”

Once again, he made the right read.

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