Before Sunday's NFC North showdown got underway, Minnesota Vikings fans had every right to worry about how their defense would perform against the lethal Detroit Lions offensive backfield made up of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery.
Gibbs and Montgomery are arguably the best running back duo in the NFL, and heading into Week 9, stopping the run was something that the Vikings struggled with in almost all of their previous games this season.
But when the final whistle sounded on Sunday, Minnesota got the win, and the result had a lot to do with their defense holding Gibbs and Montgomery to just 65 rushing yards on 20 attempts.
Former NFL defender praises Brian Flores for elite game plan in Minnesota Vikings' win over Detroit Lions
Thanks to a Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores coming up with a masterful game plan, the defense did something that very few expected on Sunday in Detroit.
On Monday, former NFL linebacker and current NFL analyst, Manti Te'o, detailed on NFL Network's "Good Morning Football" how Flores helped Minnesota's defense essentially eliminate the Lions' rushing attack in Week 9.
"I got to give my flowers to Brian Flores and what he did with Blake Cashman and Eric Wilson. All I saw was two middle linebackers blitzing all day long. They played extremely aggressive, and when I saw that, I saw how it also impacted the game.
There were so many times where the Detroit Lions offensive line, they were letting D-linemen through. Why? Because when Brian Flores kept dialing up those interior [blitzes] by the linebackers, the O-line didn't know what to do. [They were] like, 'Are the linebackers coming? Are they dropping?'
And I thought that Brian Flores, the whole game plan was, we're gonna set things on our terms, okay? So, if we have somebody that is like Jahmyr Gibbs, who is so dynamic out of the backfield, the worst thing you want to allow happen is him to run a route. And so what I saw with this aggressive approach by the Minnesota Vikings, is it caused [Detroit] to keep Jahmyr Gibbs in [to block].
Now as a linebacker, that's what I want. Now you're playing on my terms. Now I can act like I'm blitzing you, but I actually have you in man and get some pressure.
So that's what I saw in a whole bunch of those plays by Eric Wilson and Blake Cashman, was Brian Flores said, 'Hey, set the tempo, set the terms on their side of the line of scrimmage, and we're gonna win this game,' and that's exactly what happened yesterday.”
In the seven games before facing Detroit on Sunday, the Vikings' defense had allowed an opposing running back to gain at least 75 yards on the ground five times.
Flores obviously knew something had to change if Minnesota was going to contain Gibbs and Montgomery and its clear the Vikings' defensive coordinator took full advantage of the team's mini-bye between Week 8 and Week 9 to come up with a genius plan to stop the Lions' talented running back duo.
Minnesota's performance on Sunday should give the whole team confidence moving forward in the rest of the season, but especially the defense, which now looks like the unit that many expected it to look like before the start of the 2025 campaign.