Kevin O'Connell excited to deploy Danielle Hunter and Za'Darius Smith in Vikings' revamped defense

PALM BEACH, FLA. – Kevin O'Connell sat at a table just inside the entryway of a ballroom at the Breakers resort on Tuesday morning, talking to a handful of reporters as larger crowds gathered around several of his NFC coaching counterparts at the league's annual meeting.

The conversation shifted from the Vikings coach's own background as an NFL quarterback, and how he will try to help Kirk Cousins, to the experiment he is about to attempt: Taking a player who reached 50 sacks at a younger age than anyone in NFL history, and shifting him to a new position in the Vikings' base defense.

At perhaps no point in O'Connell's 30-minute media session did the coach get more excited than when he laid out his plans for Danielle Hunter as an outside linebacker in the Vikings' new 3-4 defense.

That would involve Hunter dropping into coverage on occasion. O'Connell said he had seen Hunter do that on "enough snaps over the past couple years, whether in games or practice."

"He's got such a baseline level of athletic ability that as long as you're teaching landmarks and the intent behind dropping into coverage — are we going to have him covering Cooper Kupp in the slot? Probably not," O'Connell added. "And if we do, that's more so a question for you to ask me over Danielle. But I think guys like that, with his length, his athletic ability, it's almost as much about taking up space on the second level of the defense as it is matching people in coverage."

He shifted to Hunter's job as a pass rusher, and his voice grew more animated.

"But then that role in base is really cool now, because we can kind of free him up sometimes from those interior combination [blocks], keeping those tackles from getting their hands on him, trying to match him up more against tight ends on the perimeter, setting those edges with him and Za'Darius [Smith]. And that's why you have guys like Dalvin [Tomlinson], that's why you have guys like Harrison Phillips that can then get off blocks inside. But most importantly, if all four of those guys are eating up blocks, guess what? Jordan Hicks and Eric Kendricks are running sideline-to-sideline making a lot of plays, which you can tell I'm excited about."

By signing Hicks and Smith, and choosing to keep Hunter and Kendricks, the Vikings devoted nearly $33 million of cap space to a group of linebackers they hope can be among the NFL's most versatile and dynamic. If it all works, the Vikings will have interior linebackers that can cover receiving targets or pressure the quarterback. They will have decorated edge rushers who can line up in different places, attacking matchups of the Vikings' choosing.

Their hope, quite simply, is they will always have the upper hand.

"That's where scheme comes into play. We can move these guys. They're movable pieces, both Danielle and Za'Darius," O'Connell said. "The one cool thing, when you really study them over their careers is, go look at how many times those guys have been walking around on a third down and hitting four or five different gaps in a game, rushing different matchups. Look at how many times they've been on the same side with another rusher. So we can dictate the terms of slides. That's one thing as an offensive coach: I can look at protections and see how exactly to manipulate the turn of the center so we can get one-on-one matchups with whoever we want, whenever we want."

The plan is not without its risks: Hunter has played just six games in the past two seasons, missing all of 2020 with a herniated disc in his neck before sustaining a torn pectoral muscle last year. Smith, perhaps more troublingly, was on the field for just 18 regular-season snaps in 2021, missing the rest of the regular season with a back injury before returning to play 19 snaps in the Packers' division playoff loss to the 49ers.

Though the Vikings manufactured a pass rush with players like Kendricks, D.J. Wonnum and Armon Watts after Hunter was lost for the season, their pressure rates dwindled down the stretch, particularly after Everson Griffen stepped away from the team to treat bipolar disorder in November. For the Vikings' new scheme to disrupt quarterbacks in 2022, they will need Hunter and Smith to be healthier than they were in 2021.

But O'Connell sees the potential in the plan because he knows how much a similar tandem would give him anxiety before a game. He discussed it in a manner that could be interpreted as an overture to defensive players, who might be worried they'd be the ones getting short shrift this time from a head coach focused on the opposite side of the ball.

O'Connell said versatile pressure packages are what keep him up at night an offensive coach.

"Maybe that week, I'll walk down the hall and be a defensive coach for that week." he said. "I'll leave it to [offensive coordinator] Wes [Phillips] and the guys to go figure out how to block all those guys, and I'll go figure out how to get the other team's quarterback on the ground. That's the good part about being a head coach now: You can be in different rooms when you want, and nobody can say anything to you."

The comment itself seemed to signal a change in how the Vikings will do business this year. Signing Smith, who changed his mind about returning to the Ravens and chose to reunite with former Packers coaches Mike Pettine and Mike Smith in Minnesota, gives the Vikings a complement to Hunter.

They are taking a different approach to their latest defensive rebuild, this time looking to build around a shape-shifting pass rush.

"We're excited about how we're going to deploy [Za'Darius], with Danielle, with Dalvin, with Harrison, with the rest of our outfit, to be in attack mode on defense when it comes to those known passing situations," O'Connell said. "I'm really excited about that, and I think everything that he brings, from his experience level in big games, to the juice factor in setting the tone of what we want our culture to be like, [there's a] lot to be excited about with Z."