The Minnesota Vikings boast the best defense in the NFL, and they’re doing it without a superstar.
While Harrison Smith could be a future Hall of Famer and Dallas Turner is enjoying a breakout campaign, most fans outside of Minnesota would have trouble naming the players who make Brian Flores’s defense tick, and that includes Blake Cashman.
Cashman had one of his best games as a Viking in Minnesota’s 16-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, collecting 12 total tackles and three quarterback hits.
He also became the first player since former Chicago Bears linebacker Alex Brown to have at least two sacks and four passes defensed in the same game.
A relative unknown to most football fans, Cashman has been a solid signing as a free agent in 2024, and he’s part of a defense that thrives due to the sum of its parts.
Blake Cashman and the Vikings defense are quickly introducing themselves
A Minnesota native and a collegiate standout with the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Cashman signed with the Vikings in 2024 after a recommendation from Gophers linebackers coach Mike Sherels.
According to Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune, Sherels called Cashman “The best guy we had” in a conversation with Flores as their daughters were on a playground, and it inspired him to turn on the tape and make a recommendation to sign him as a free agent in 2024.
“That happens,” Flores said in September 2024. “You have a conversation with somebody, you don’t know somebody all that well, but it’s someone who has no agenda – just a former coach that knows him personally, speaks highly of him. You look him up, and there he is.”
As part of a free-agent class that also included Aaron Jones, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Sam Darnold, Cashman became an immediate starter for the Vikings and logged 112 total tackles, eight tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, and an interception in 14 games during the 2024 season.
Cashman played even better in 2025, recording a career-high 144 tackles despite being limited to 13 games due to injury, and had 42 total tackles, four tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks entering Sunday’s game against the Colts.
But Cashman’s value isn’t just measurable by his stats. He’s an ace in coverage for the Vikings, allowing 12 catches for 98 yards and three pass breakups on 19 targets before Sunday’s win.
As the player who wears the “green dot,” Cashman also wears the device to communicate with the coaching staff and delivers that message to the players on the field.
That ability allows Flores to blitz frequently, logging a 65.6 percent blitz rate entering Sunday.
That number was nearly double that of the New York Giants, who ranked second in the NFL with a 38.0 percent blitz rate, and the gap widened even more against the Colts when ESPN’s Kevin Seifert noted that the Vikings blitzed Daniel Jones on 85 percent of his dropbacks – the highest rate of any NFL team over the past 20 seasons.
It’s that versatility that made Smith sing Cashman’s praises while noting he may not be a household name outside of Minnesota.
“I don’t think he always gets the credit he deserves outside of this area. But he’s one of the best doing it right now.”
Blake Cashman is helping the Vikings be ready for their upcoming schedule
Cashman is just one of the players you might have to explain to a friend, but he makes the Vikings’ defense tick.
Players like Jalen Redmond and Levi Drake Rodriguez have helped Minnesota improve in the trenches this season, and the secondary also has several players who won’t win any popularity contests, including Byron Murphy Jr. and Isaiah Rodgers.
Flores’s play-calling is one reason the Vikings have morphed into a generational defense. But his calls would mean nothing if he didn’t have the players on the field to execute them.
Sunday’s game was another example that this approach is working, as Jones was held to 108 yards passing and an interception.
The Vikings have also allowed just 228 total passing yards over the past three games, showing how Cashman and the rest of Flores’s group have suffocated opposing offenses.
The upcoming schedule will put the defense to the test as they face the high-powered offenses of the Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, and San Francisco 49ers in the next four weeks.
But for now, what they’re doing is working, and it’s players like Cashman who are a big reason why.
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