It's hard to find in the slate of NFL games a coaching matchup as exciting as head coach Matt LaFleur leading the Green Bay Packers offense and coordinator Brian Flores putting together a unique style with the Minnesota Vikings defense. On Sunday, they will face off for the third time with their current teams.
Last year, each one had an advantage in one game. In October, Flores limited LaFleur's offense to 10 points, but the Packers were much better in December, scoring 33 in Minnesota.
Now, the situation for both sides is slightly different. The Vikings have more talent, which has allowed Flores to be even more effective over the first few weeks of the season. LaFleur has done an impressive job without Jordan Love, and the Packers got two wins with Malik Willis at quarterback — now, there is a chance that Love gets back, prompting Green Bay to play at a higher level if it takes advantage of some of the lessons it has had .
"I think for Matt to go in his bag and be a West Coast guy and then turn around and he's got this whole zone read, RBO counter read, I mean, that's pretty impressive," Flores said of LaFleur . "I don't think it's being talked about enough for me, this is just, it's impressive to watch."
LaFleur's adaptability
The Packers hired Matt LaFleur in 2019 to build a new style of offense around Aaron Rodgers, but we only fully understood what his ideas were when the veteran quarterback got traded. Even with Jordan Love starting for the first time last season and with the youngest and least expensive offensive roster in football, Green Bay was sixth in offensive DVOA.
Through three weeks in 2024, it has been even better. Yes, even with Malik Willis playing two of the three games, the Packers are third in DVOA. Green Bay leads the NFL in explosive plays.
"He's gotten a menu of different styles of play," Flores added. "He tries to stay ahead of the defense. Clearly, they run it, they screen it, they drop back, they turn the RPO. They've got everything which can try to keep you off balance. I learned a long time ago, great coaches are able to adapt."
And Matt LaFleur knows how to adapt. He did it for Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love, Malik Willis, and different iterations of the offensive line and pass-catching groups.
Flores' uniqueness
Let's be honest, the Minnesota Vikings didn't have much defensive talent last year. Brian Flores knew that, so he went wild. The Vikings created one of the craziest styles in football, a blitz-heavy defense with post-snap disguises.
"They give you a lot of different looks," Matt LaFleur said on Wednesday. "Much like we talk about the illusion of complexity, where we'd like to give looks that are difficult on the defense, but simple for us, I feel like that's what they do. They have a system in place that makes it easier for their players to go out there and execute, but it makes it extremely difficult on the offenses that they're going against."
As soon as offenses started to pick things up throughout the season, the lack of talent became more problematic, and the results weren't so good by the end of 2023.
So this offseason, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah added important pieces to the group: Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, and Jonathan Greenard are prime examples of solid scheme fits.
You could expect that Brian Flores would slow down the crazy style with more talent, but he went in the complete opposite direction. His thought process involved imagining how this unique style would work with more talent on the field. So far, it's been awesome. The Vikings are first in defensive DVOA.
"He's the only one doing it like this. His defenses are very aggressive, and it causes it a lot of headaches," LaFleur added. "He's one of the most challenging guys to go against in this league. I've got a lot of respect for what he's able to accomplish. They're off to a fast start. Not only is the scheme really tough to go against, but they've added some good pieces as well that have helped them become that much better. They play fast, they play physical, they're doing a great job of getting after the quarterback."
When the Vikings beat the San Francisco 49ers in week 2, quarterback Brock Purdy complimented Flores .
"Your scheme is crazy," Purdy said.
And that's because it's not a simple post-snap disguise. The Vikings' defense can be completely different at any point in time. They lead the NFL in rate of cover 0 (10%), which is man coverage with no deep safety help, but they also lead the league in the combination of cover 2 and 4 (51%), classic two-high shells.
So on each play, the quarterback has to be prepared to face a conservative, Vic Fangio-style two-high, or an extremely aggressive zero blitz. Jordan Love was able to do that in December, but now the challenges are bigger since 1) the Vikings have more talent and 2) if Love plays at all, he will probably be less than 100% in terms of mobility coming off an MCL injury.
How Matt LaFleur and Brian Flores will attack each other on Sunday will be telling of how other teams might try to limit them. But don't get it wrong, doing it at the level LaFleur and Flores are is not for everything. And this is what makes the Packers-Vikings matchup so special.
Related: How the Packers offense evolved without Jordan Love, and how it can be useful when he is back
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