As the 2025 season winds down for the Minnesota Vikings, talk about the future of defensive coordinator Brian Flores is gaining steam again.
The work he has done over the last three seasons, especially this one with an offense that has rarely functioned correctly, makes him an obvious candidate for multiple interviews when the head coach hiring cycle gets going.
Working against Flores getting a second chance to be a head coach is his ongoing discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams. But he should get multiple interviews again, and there should not be any real impediment to a team hiring him if they desire to.
Flores chose to coach out the final year of his contract with the Vikings rather than sign an extension last offseason. That keeps all of his options open as he approaches what could be the final game of his tenure in Minnesota, including potentially making a lateral move to another defensive coordinator job.
Report suggests Dallas Cowboys as potential landing spot for Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores in 2026
Beyond the obvious note that Flores is expected to draw head coaching interest, Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk has started to cover the Vikings' defensive coordinator's situation fairly heavily.
Early in the post-Christmas weekend, Florio reported the Vikings are "working to extend" Flores. That's not exactly a groundbreaking report itself, but Florio then added something a little more interesting.
"Dallas seems to be destined to fire defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, after a disastrous reunion year. (Never mind the fact that owner/G.M. Jerry Jones traded the defense’s best player 10 days before Week 1.) And the increasing chatter in league circles is that the Cowboys will be firmly in play for Flores.
The Vikings, we’re told, are keenly aware of the possibility. And while the Vikings should have exclusive rights to negotiate with Flores until his contract expires, we all know by now that tampering is as rampant in pro football as flopping mouthpieces that never seem to make their way into players’ mouths."
Florio then added an interesting layer to the Flores conversation, as it relates to the Cowboys or any other team that may want to make him their defensive coordinator.
"The other factor in all of this is whether the Vikings truly want Flores back, or whether they want to create the impression that they tried to keep him. As we learned when canvassing high-level personnel with multiple teams about Flores’ head coaching prospects in the coming hiring cycle, his Belichickian style hasn’t always meshed with Minnesota nice."
Pigeonholing Flores as a Bill Belichick clone, simply because he worked under the former Patriots' head coach for years, is unfair to him. "High-level personnel with multiple teams, who offer insight under the cover of anonymity, tend to have an agenda.
While Florio didn't call it out this time around, he did point to the likely deciding vote in how aggressively the Vikings try to keep Flores.
"Still, coach Kevin O’Connell will (or should) have plenty of say in the final decision as to how much the Vikings will pay to keep Flores. Given O’Connell’s gentler touch when it comes to working with others, Flores provides balance. And if/when the Vikings get their quarterback position figured out, the upside in Minnesota could be higher than it is in Dallas."
As has become obvious, and Florio reinforced, separate from the possibility he'll be hired as a head coach somewhere, Flores will be the clear-cut winner of any bidding war for his services as a defensive coordinator.
He bet on himself going into this season, and won big regardless of what happens after the season. Hopefully, the Vikings do whatever it takes to keep him, but he will have options.