Can the Vikings Afford To Keep Moneyballing At Cornerback?

Remember when former Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman said that his wife told him, ‘If you draft another corner, don’t come home. You can just stay at the office?”

That quote from 2019 feels like eons ago.

Seemingly gone are the days of investing premium capital, either cash or draft picks, into what most of the league considers to be a premium position. The last time Minnesota spent a first-round pick on a cornerback was six years ago when they selected Jeff Gladney 31st overall. Before then, it seemed to happen at least every two to three years, with picks like Mike Hughes, Trae Waynes, and Xavier Rhodes highlighting the Spielman era.

Since Gladney, cornerback has been relegated to a “secondary” priority (pun intended). The highest-drafted players at cornerback in the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah era came in the form of Andrew Booth in 2022. Since bringing in Brian Flores to run the defense, the highest they’ve selected any player in the secondary has been spending a compensatory third-rounder on Mekhi Blackmon at pick 102, with everything else being in the fourth round or beyond.

From a free-agency standpoint, they’ve made a substantial investment in Byron Murphy Jr. at $18 million a year. Still, they’ve tried to bargain shop their other starters at corner with $5.5 million a year for Isaiah Rodgers last offseason and $4.25 million to James Pierre this offseason. Beyond those three, it’s veteran minimums and UDFAs.

The Athletic's Vikings beat reporter, Alec Lewis, dropped an interesting insight this past week: “The Vikings haven’t used a first- or second-round pick on a cornerback since Flores arrived, and I don’t expect them to start now, especially after signing free agent James Pierre.”

That runs counter to conventional NFL wisdom. Corners get drafted at a high rate in the first three rounds of the draft, and good ones get paid quickly. Many other franchises would look at Minnesota’s cornerback situation. They wouldn’t consider a player like James Pierre to be enough to get in the way of further investment in that position. For a defense that’s predicated on bringing pressure like Flores’, it seems counterintuitive not to invest in corners that they can trust in single coverage. But if you’ve watched the Flores defense the past few seasons, you’ve seen how he’s worked around this deficiency.

His scheme hasn’t necessitated elite, high-end cover corners. Whether that’s by design or adapting to his personnel deficiencies is up to interpretation, but the results speak for themselves. Minnesota’s passing defense has been elite under Flores; they posted the fewest passing yards against last year. Opposing QBs had the second-lowest QBR in the league against Minnesota (46.3), and the Vikings forced the second-lowest yards per completion at 9.72. That’s really, really good.

And yet, we can also call to mind the performances where teams managed to unravel Flores — Ben Johnson’s Detroit Lions and Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams lighting them up in back-to-back weeks with in-breakers and crossers in 2024, or Justin Herbert dicing them up over the middle to everyone’s favorite fantasy waiver-wire pickup Oronde Gadsden. The inability to cover comfortably outside means a whole lot of cover-2 shells and middle-of-the-field open coverages, leaving them quite vulnerable to any offensive coordinator and quarterback capable of dissecting all the disguises and pressures Flores throws their way.

But, once again, is this by design or necessity? Is it simply that the cornerback markets in both free agency and the draft were too rich for Minnesota to partake in the past few seasons beyond Byron Murphy and a few second-tier free agents, so Flores adjusted accordingly? Or are cornerbacks simply not the highest priority for the Flores system, which instead prioritizes versatile positions like safety and outside linebacker that can provide Flores the flexibility and diversity for his defensive mad science?

Are cornerbacks to Flores what running back is to Kevin O’Connell? And, if so, who’s his Cam Akers? Fabian Moreau?

I can see the argument. Flores plays almost exclusively off coverage, and his whole defensive philosophy seems to be centered around confusing the opposing offense and forcing them to settle for checkdowns and plays that limit explosive gains. He doesn't ask his corners to shut down an opposing receiver on long-developing plays; Flores doesn’t allow for them in the first place. Pressures, disguises, and stunts up front are there to force the issue quickly, and then his secondary needs to react quickly to break on the ball or rally to make the tackle.

Let’s look at a player in this draft class. LSU’s Mansoor Delane is an exciting player for a team that needs a sticky, man-coverage corner. Delane’s got great ability in man coverage, and I’d trust him singled up in physical coverage against a team’s No. 1 receiver as we saw him do every week in the SEC. He’s got the downfield speed to press on a guy and then flip his hips and run with him deep.

However, he doesn’t fit the profile of a Flores corner. He doesn’t often ask his corners to play isolated man coverage. Flores wants his guys to have their eyes on the quarterback and react quickly in zone to what’s happening in front of them. If Minnesota ever selects a guy like Delane, it might signal changes in Flores’ defensive philosophy toward a style closer to the Cover 1 looks he ran frequently in Miami.

But that’s where things get interesting. What could an investment in a young player like Tennessee's Jermod McCoy or San Diego State’s Chris Johnson do for the Flores defense? Would he be able to operate with even more versatility, freeing himself up to mix in man concepts akin to his Miami days and combine those with his unorthodox zone blitzes that have been so successful in Minnesota?

He may also double down on what’s worked so well during his Minnesota tenure. He may prioritize a versatile safety who can continue his three-safety looks that were so successful in 2024. He may want increased investment in the defensive interior, suggesting he’s more focused on creating havoc at the line of scrimmage than on the back end.

As Minnesota looks to reload nearly half its defensive roster after shedding the likes of Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave in free agency, preparing for a possible retirement of Harrison Smith, and struggling with an already leaky situation at cornerback, it’s going to be fascinating to see how they prioritize their positional needs for the Flores defense.

Despite all the talk about going for the best player available, when the tie between two similarly graded players needs to be broken, I’ll be curious to see what Flores sees as more of a necessity to run his defense well.