Minnesota Vikings Minnesota Vikings

New Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores wants to bring some changes to the defensive side of the ball in Minnesota, but he’s running into a slight issue: there’s no tackling during OTAs.

This week, Brian Flores said that he thinks establishing an identity is key to playing great defense and revealed that he wants the Vikings’ defensive identity to be “aggressive but not reckless.”

“I think building an identity is a big part of playing defense,” Flores said according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “I try to impart that to our players. That happens over time. Every time we step on the practice field, it’s ‘What is our identity? What are people going to say about us? What do we want it to look like?’”

The problem, as Flores explains, is that it’s difficult to install an aggressive defensive scheme during a non-contact portion of practice.

“It’s hard to do that in this setting because so much of the game is physical,” Flores said. “We’re kind of forecasting based on what we’ve seen. That’s part of it too. We have to forecast. The final decisions of what we’re going to be are going to be made down the road.”

It will certainly be interesting to see how the defense ultimately looks when the finished product is revealed this season.

[St. Paul Pioneer Press]