Can Minnesota's Camp Breakout Be the Unconventional Answer To Their CB Woes?

Theo Jackson has made a huge splash in camp, and the reviews are glowing.

Jackson blowing up is great news, but it creates an interesting problem for the Minnesota Vikings. How can they get him snaps in a defense that already features the legendary Harrison Smith alongside Cam Bynum, who had a great year last year, and Josh Metellus, who broke out in his first year under Brian Flores?

The Vikings used three safeties more often than most other teams. Smith and Bynum each played over 99% of the team's snaps, and Metellus was third on the defense, playing over 94% of the snaps. The Vikings led the NFL in snaps among players listed as safeties in 2023 with 3,462, which led the second-place Houston Texans by about 350 snaps. Minnesota safeties had over 1,000 more snaps than the NFL average (2,455). The talk from camp seems to indicate that Jackson has earned a little bit more than simply rotating him in when the team wants to give Smith, 35, a break.

Considering the depth in the safety room, problems at a different position may lead to the answer for how to get Jackson playing time. Minnesota's lack of depth at cornerback is a stark contrast to the abundant talent in their safety room. The team brought in multiple veterans with starting experience to help fill that gap in Bobby McCain and Fabian Moreau. However, stopgap veterans are usually not a long-term solution.

Flores is no stranger to using creativity to maximize his defense, as he showed last year. Could incorporating not just three but four safety sets with just two CBs on the field be a way to get Jackson on the field and supplement a CB room that's weak behind Byron Murphy?

What does a Four-safety defense look like?

The Vikings ran a number of plays with four safeties last year. Jackson played 126 total snaps, and only a few of those were in relief of Metellus, who missed a small portion of the Philadelphia Eagles game but not much else time. By my count, Minnesota ran 97 snaps with four safeties on the field last year. I was able to take a look at the four games with the most such snaps -- at Atlanta and Green Bay and home against the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, plus the Philadelphia game where Jackson played a season-high 21 snaps.

What I found was that the Vikings primarily used four safeties in their seven DB sets. They broke these out in two-minute drills or on long-distance, pure passing situations, where they didn't need to worry about the threat of the run and wanted to maximize the number of DB bodies that they had in coverage.

The play below against the Atlanta Falcons was a typical example. It's second-and-12 with less than a minute to go before halftime, a situation where the Falcons can't really run the ball. In it, the Vikings drop eight players into a Cover 3 Zone, which helps flood the coverage and eventually force a scramble. Jackson is lined up at the LB level at the top of your screen and covers the TE in a short curl zone.

[video width=1280" height="720" mp4="https://zonecoverage.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/typical-coverage-shell.mp4]

There's certainly nothing wrong with using this as coverage strategy in long down-and-distance situations, but it's not something that would translate to an every-down play. If the Vikings want to use Jackson more, this isn't the type of play that they could run every down. Having only three defensive linemen and one linebacker is a recipe for getting run over on normal down-and-distances.

So what about situations where the Vikings had only six total DBs on the field, including Jackson? Those were harder to find, but they ran a number of them in the Bears game. Here's a compilation of those plays:

Although the Vikings typically ran those plays in passing situations, there was the odd third-and-four or first-and-10 in that sample. You can also see the variety of fronts and structures Minnesota ran in these looks, with different presentations along the line of scrimmage, including a number of reps in their aggressive Bengal front. The plays above look a lot more like the Vikings' "typical" defense. (I put "typical" in quotes because, well, nothing about Minnesota's defense under Flores can really be called typical.)

Jackson got asked to line up in a number of spots, including as a deep safety, at the LB level, and mugged up on the line of scrimmage. However, he primarily was an apex or slot defender. That dovetails with what the Vikings would ask him to do if he took on more CB responsibility because playing in the slot is a much more natural fit for a safety than playing outside CB would be. If Minnesota wants to use Jackson more, it's likely they would still have to keep Murphy and one of Shaq Griffin, Akayleb Evans, or Fabian Moreau as outside corners while Metellus and Jackson are the primary slot defenders.

However, that doesn't cover whether Jackson is ready for an expanded role and the responsibilities of a slot CB. I went to the tape to look at his play from last year and tried to determine whether he has what it takes to survive a heavy role in the slot.

Projecting Jackson to the slot

On most of the reps he played, Jackson was primarily tasked with covering an underneath zone. I thought he did a pretty good job of getting into his zone drop, identifying receivers, and covering them while maintaining his responsibility and keeping an eye on the QB. However, this is a pretty easy task that's also asked of LBs. To me, being able to do this, while nice to see, is a prerequisite for getting on the field at all.

Here are some examples of him executing zone responsibilities well:

The ability in underneath coverage is likely what's leading Jackson to have such a successful camp so far this year. Great zone players have a feel for baiting the QB, and their timing can lead to opportune pass breakups and interceptions, like Jackson's first career interception last year against the Eagles.

Man-coverage reps are actually more difficult from the slot in some respects, as the defender is often covering smaller players or opponents who can break in either direction. These days, TEs also run routes from the slot often, so as a defender you have to be prepared to cover a quick slot receiver line Brandon Powell as well as a tall, seam-stretching threat like T.J. Hockenson. It's not an easy task, but against TEs at least, I thought Jackson held up well in coverage.

Despite the successes on the plays above, man coverage was also where my biggest concern crept in for Jackson. He seemed to really struggle to handle vertical speed and releases. On the two plays below against Detroit, he's lined up against the middle receiver on the three-receiver side both times. The first time, he slips at the top of the route break. That's because he was struggling to match the receiver vertically, and because he had to go all out to try to match the opponent’s speed, he was unable to stop with him. The second is a press rep where receiver Kalif Raymond completely blows him up.

Long speed also showed up as an issue on Jackson's biggest mistake on the season, a huge catch by DeVonta Smith in the Eagles game.

The long speed uncertainty makes asking Jackson to play slot across from Metellus difficult. Metellus was a great slot defender last year, but the Vikings played a limited amount of man coverage, so they mostly asked him to play zone. When he was in man, it was often up against TEs.

Metellus doesn't profile as someone who can handle speed, and Jackson doesn't look like that type of player, either. That will make it difficult to put both of them on the field at the same time on normal passing downs, especially if the team wants to play more man coverage. You can set the coverage to the TE to ensure that Metellus plays on that side, but Metellus on a TE means trouble if you get caught with Jackson on a speedster.

What about asking someone like Bynum, who played CB in college, to come down into the slot while Jackson plays deep? Well, besides Bynum's profile, which made the Vikings move him to safety in the first place, there was limited data on Jackson as a deep safety. Anticipation of routes and keeping up with defenders also showed up as issues there.

Physicality is another important trait for slot defenders, as they're often asked to chip in against the run and take on blocks from bigger players. Jackson is consistently willing to take on those blocks, like on the plays below against the Eagles.

https://twitter.com/FriesFootball/status/1820275811850526815

Here's a different compilation from the other games I watched, featuring a number of nice, physical tackles:

https://twitter.com/FriesFootball/status/1820276188679381295

Still, I don't think Jackson rises to the level of Metellus when tackling. At 6'1" and 196 lbs., Jackson looks a lot leaner than Metellus' 5'11" and 207 lbs., and it shows when he gets blocked and occasionally misses a tackle. In all, the tackling and physicality would still be a plus for Jackson when comparing him to other slot defenders, just not Metellus.

https://twitter.com/FriesFootball/status/1820276625394508019

conclusion

It sounds like Theo Jackson has significantly improved his game from the safety position this offseason and is making big plays in camp. That indicates that he took his game in zone coverage to the next level and is using his smarts and disguises to disrupt passing lanes in underneath zones. That would be great for the Vikings in pure passing situations, where Jackson primarily saw the field last year.

However, in a loaded safety room, Jackson may need to evolve his game to improve upon his 126 snaps in 2023. The Vikings need help at CB, not safety, and I think some of the deficiencies that Jackson showed last year would prevent him from being effective if asked to play full-time in the slot. His zone instincts are great, but he would really need to improve in man coverage against quick WRs to be a viable slot player if the Vikings aren't going to ask him to replace Josh Metellus in taking on TEs.

Jackson has clearly worked hard to improve his game since joining the Vikings. Hopefully, the Vikings will reward him with an increase in snaps and perhaps some more safety rotation in 2024. But ultimately, it would be unfair to ask him to fill the role of a cornerback, the position where Minnesota has the greatest need.

Jay Ward is getting run as a slot CB in camp and might be able to become a slot option. Here's a nice play Ward made against Detroit. The Vikings had a whopping five players listed as safeties (Smith, Bynum, Metellus, Jackson, and Ward) in on the action, which has to be some kind of record.

https://twitter.com/FriesFootball/status/1820278879644271075