Vikings DC Brian Flores highlights difficulties of game planning for Ben Johnson’s Bears in Week 1 ‘No one has a crystal ball’
The biggest factor in a Vikings victory is figuring out Ben Johnson
The Minnesota Vikings don’t play until Monday night when they open the 2025 season against the Chicago Bears.
The majority of the focus is going to be on first-year starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy, but it’s Brian Flores’ defense that should be getting a lot more attention. Over the last four matchups against Bears head coach Ben Johnson when he was the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator, the Vikings are 0-4 and have allowed 30 points in all four matchups.
Brian Flores talks difficulty in game planning for Ben Johnson
When Johnson was with the Lions, the biggest factor was quarterback Jared Goff. He thrived in situations when it came to attacking the blitz with excellent quick game. Johnson had great counters to Flores’ blitzes and Goff was the perfect quarterback to execute those.
The biggest question with Johnson’s offense is how much it will change now that Caleb Williams is the quarterback.
“First we start with the players for Chicago, obviously, starting with the quarterback. Caleb poses a lot of problems with his quarterback mobility, his arm strength, and his ability to make the off schedule plays, and then Swift in the backfield, and obviously DJ Moore and Rome [Odunze], the tight end group with Loveland and Kmet, so they’ve got a lot of skill players along with the O-line. And then you combine that with Ben, who we know well from Detroit,” Flores explained. “There’s some predicting, some forecasting, but no one has a crystal ball, so we don’t know what Ben’s got cooked up, or what his thought process is. . .
“I think for us, it’s really more about fundamentals and techniques and having good communication, really weak ones normally about that. And that’s really where our focus has been. Let’s make sure we’re aligned, right. Good hand placement, good footwork, good communication, I think if we do that consistently over 60 minutes, hopefully we put ourselves in best positions.”
There are some impressive names on the roster for the Bears, and understanding how Johnson will use them is certainly a challenge, something Flores knows all too well.
“What doesn’t make it tough? I mean, it’s the run game, it’s the pass game, it’s the play action game, it’s the screen game, it’s the gun runs, runs under [center], play action. Gun play-action. I mean, anything, third down, red zone, all of it is, I would say he does a good job of putting it all together,” Flores added. “Things that look like one thing, there’s 2, 3, 4, 5, things out of it. So it really boils down to your techniques, your fundamentals, just your overall cohesion and communication.”
What Flores described is essentially Kevin O’Connell’s “the illusion of complexity.” You run the same concepts out of multiple different looks, which makes things very difficult for defensive coordinators to figure out.
The chess match is set to be one of the best in Week 1, and it’ll be important for the Vikings to figure out Johnson’s offense.
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