In today’s episode of As the Flores Turns, our beloved defensive coordinator has gotten two more interviews, one of which could turn out to be particularly worrisome for fans of our Minnesota Vikings.
According to our friends over at Hogs Haven (among numerous other sources), today Brian Flores interviewed for the vacant defensive coordinator job with the Washington Commanders. The Commanders fired their former defensive coordinator, Joe Whitt, at the end of the season, and head coach Dan Quinn had taken over the defensive playcalling responsibilities from him during the season as the Commanders fielded one of the worst defenses in the NFL. I honestly don’t think that Flores would leave the Vikings to make a parallel move to try to rebuild a defense as bad as Washington’s, but I suppose it couldn’t hurt him as far as potential leverage for a new contract is concerned.
The one that could be problematic for us Vikings fans comes from the AFC North, as the Pittsburgh Steelers are reportedly going to be interviewing Flores for their head coaching vacancy after Mike Tomlin stepped down after nineteen seasons on Tuesday. Flores was the linebackers coach in Pittsburgh in 2022 before the Vikings hired him to be their defensive coordinator, and the Steelers just seem to be the sort of franchise that would be willing to ignore the fact that Flores still has his lawsuit pending against the NFL in order to make him their head coach.
While the Pittsburgh job might be a bit of a rebuild. . .they’ve got an aging roster and a big question mark at quarterback, among other things. . .it also comes with the benefit of having, quite possibly, the most patient ownership group in NFL history. Since the Steelers hired Chuck Noll in 1969, there have been twice as many Popes (6) as there have been Pittsburgh Steelers head coaches (3). Noll held the job from 1969 to 1991, then Bill Cowher took over in 1992 and stayed until 2006, and then Tomlin was hired and stayed in that position until just a couple of days ago. So, if the Steelers do have to do a full-on rebuild, at least Flores would, in all likelihood, get the opportunity to see it through all the way.
We’ll do our best to keep up with everything that’s going on with Brian Flores and any other members of the Vikings’ coaching staff that might be swapping out over the coming days and weeks. For now, I guess we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that he really, really likes Minnesota enough that he wants to just hang out and keep running the defense he’s put together over the past three seasons.
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