Always Keep Gambling: The Story Of Brian Flores & Matt LaFleur

At my bachelor party in Las Vegas, my future brother-in-law was having some rough luck at the blackjack table. He lost $100, then $200, then more. He kept doubling down, losing $400, then $800, and so on. 

Despite protest from the rest of the group, he resolved to keep doubling his bets until he won a hand, intending to leave the table when that one win broke him even.

He ended up taking multiple trips to the ATM and going almost $2,000 in the hole, but then the magical hand arrived. A split, mind you. He won both hands and, now up $2,000, left the casino for the weekend.

The insanity of this strategy is not lost on us, and this is now a legendary story among everyone who was there. But it makes for a pretty good metaphor for Flores’ never-say-die approach. Give up a chunk? A first down? Lose a hand? Just keep gambling, increasing the aggression until you break back into the black.

[Editor’s Note: Connoisseurs of Wide Left know that this isn’t gambling]

On Sunday afternoon, Brian Flores never let up, blitzing at an absolutely unholy rate. 73.9%, per Trumedia. 34 of 45 dropbacks. No other NFL team would dare.

At this astounding volume, the blitz becomes your base defense. You need coverages you can run 4 out of every 5 plays without getting gashed. You also need enough blitzes to last the whole game. If you spam the same blitz over and over, eventually the defense will catch on.

While Flores doesn’t quite go this far every game, he still blitzes enough (45% over the last three years) to require a sort of base blitz defense. Sending extra rushers and covering with six or five as a bread and butter. Which means as an offensive mastermind, preparing for Flores is unlike preparing for any other defense in the league.

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How Matt LaFleur attacked Flores, and how Flores attacked back, turned out to be the most fascinating angle of the Vikings’ 39-22 win to me. As much as it feels like an unmitigated whooping now that the dust has settled on a 17-point victory, LaFleur got his licks in too, especially early in the game.

Plainly, every single concept the Packers brought to the game has to have consideration for whether the Vikings decide to blitz against it. If they ever brought a 5-man protection, like they do on this play, then sending six can be all Flores needs. Nothing fancy needed.

From LaFleur’s perspective, he knows the Vikings will send a lot of blitzes. So to prepare, the Packers brought as many quick passing concepts as possible. Get the ball out, beat the blitz.

So we have a game within the game. LaFleur has to predict what Flores will bring to counter him, then counter that and so on. A layered dance of reverse psychology. An ultra-evolved game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

If the Packers can block up the blitz, then Jordan Love gets to feast on a depleted coverage structure. On this next play, they don’t block it perfectly, but hold up long enough for deep routes to develop. That’s bad news for Minnesota.

Only two defenders are to the bottom of the screen: Byron Murphy, who plays the first deep route, and Josh Metellus, playing underneath. The Packers send three threats there, and someone will be open.

Technically, Metellus could have sunk deeper to contest this pass, or Murphy could have passed his post off and driven the deep over, but with that much time, the spacing is way too wide for those kinds of adjustments to be reasonable to expect.

So the rules of the game are: Flores attacks, and LaFleur either has to dial up a quick throw or find a way to block everyone. So let’s get a little more advanced.

Start with the certainties. Split zone is a staple for Green Bay, as I pointed out in a study I did before the game. The Packers will run it regardless of gameplan.  And it makes sense — Green Bay has two good blocking tight ends in Jonnu Smith and Tucker Kraft, and split zone relies on tight end blocking.

The key for the Packers is two combo blocks on Jalen Redmond and Levi Drake Rodriguez, working up to the linebackers behind them. Jonnu Smith pulls all the way across the field to block Dallas Turner. Add a hinge block on Kyle Van Noy, and now you have split zone.

One of Flores’ main tools for exploiting this ruleset is to “slash” the front. That means asking Redmond, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, etc., to step hard to one side to complicate Green Bay’s blocking assignments. It’s one of Redmond’s strengths.

Another is to have Eric Wilson creep up to blitz. It all plays out like so:

Now backup left guard Donovan Jennings has to handle Wilson immediately, leaving Morgan on his own against Redmond. To do that job, Morgan has to step hard at Redmond at the start. And if you notice where Redmond is running, you’ll see an issue with that.

Amidst all this stress, Cashman works so far away from the double team that wants to block him that Sean Rhyan can’t pick him up. Both Cashman and Redmond get into the backfield, and the run can’t survive.

That’s a lot for one play, but it gives you a sense for the level of detail LaFleur and Flores are fighting over. Flores isn’t always trying to get a player entirely unblocked, but to make the Packers’ jobs hard enough that they have a high chance of failing. LaFleur is trying to push the other way. 

So let the games begin.

If you know the universalities of pass protection, as NFL defensive coordinators do, then you know the rule set you’re trying to abuse. One global pass protection rule is that the offensive line is responsible for all the defensive linemen. Bigs handle bigs.

Lines count this off in a covered-uncovered system. If you’re covered by a big, block that big. The first person who isn’t starts the slide, and everyone walls together. Whether they count from the left or the right is the center’s judgment call, depending on the front, gameplan, and situation. Here’s an example on a crucial 3rd down.

Jordan Morgan is covered by Dallas Turner. Jennings is covered by Ingram-Dawkins. Rhyan has no bigs in front of him, so this will be a three-man slide.

The Vikings know this system as well. They’re blitzing Blake Cashman here, and they want to know they are working with a 3-on-3. If the running back gets involved, it could beat this blitz, so the Vikings creep Eric Wilson up to distract him.

Both Turner and Wilson back into coverage, making this a four-man rush and wasting the play for Morgan and Chris Brooks. 

No matter which way the Packers count this, it’ll be an issue for them. Either they turn Rhyan away from Cashman, and it’s a 2-on-3, or they turn it toward Cashman, and it’s a 3-on-3 the Vikings can win.

We get the latter. Redmond attacks the center, demanding his attention, and Cashman slips in behind him. QB hit, incomplete.

With Brooks’ eyes drawn to Wilson, Turner and Ingram-Dawkins, he works away and is effectively neutralized. 

What’s cool here is that the Vikings design a blitz to attack classic pass-protection structures, then don’t actually have to blitz to win. They have an unblocked player on a four-man rush. So if it doesn’t get home, the coverage will hold up longer than six- or five-man coverages.

The disadvantage to this simulated pressure strategy is that it often asks pass rushers to cover. That’s better than nobody, but is still exploitable. Here, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins is pressed into coverage, and Jordan Love finds him quickly.

So the question becomes, who is blitzing, who isn’t, and where are they coming from? And can Green Bay anticipate the answer and counter it?

Blitzes can’t disrupt the entire field, or they’d be the only thing a defensive coordinator needs. Flores usually targets a specific blocker or area, at the risk of weakness elsewhere. If LaFleur can anticipate where the blitz is coming from, he can find a weak spot to attack.