As the regular season finale approaches, talk about the future of Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is moving to the forefront. His contract expires when the season is over, and he will surely draw multiple interviews for head coaching openings.
On Monday, Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell made his thoughts about Flores absolutely clear.
"I absolutely want Brian Flores to be the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings as long as we can have him. And I would say this: I do know that he's demonstrated a lot of things that if, you know, having gone through the process of the head coach hiring process before myself, I imagine he's going to be a pretty popular guy there as well. And rightly so, he's earned everything.
[But] that doesn't take away from the route we want to go to make sure he's our defensive coordinator here for the foreseeable future."
The Vikings will surely make every effort to keep Flores, but if he matches nicely with a team that wants him to be their next head coach, he will be gone. As for any speculation that Flores would leave for another defensive coordinator job, O'Connell said he doesn't see that happening.
But until he either has a head coaching job or a new contract from the Vikings, there will be teams (or new head coaches shaping their staffs) who will (and should) court Flores.
A new, wildly unlikely 2026 suitor for Minnesota Vikings DC Brian Flores has been put out there
Earlier this week, Mike Valenti of 97.1 The Ticket went all the way to propose a potential outside suitor for Flores amid comments about the Detroit Lions assessing where things went wrong this season.
"You know who doesn't have a contract [for] next year? There's an elite defensive coordinator who's got head coaching experience, who would bring a new voice, new eyes, new approach. He happens to be in your division."
Valenti then offered an NSFW analogy to describe what the Vikings' defense did to the Lions on Christmas Day, before, of course, naming Flores as a "big boy" option to replace current Detroit defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard.
"Brian Flores is available. Make him the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the league and hire him."
If Flores does leave the Vikings for a different defensive coordinator job, as unlikely as it seems to be, it's fair to assume money will talk. Which isn't to say his consideration of a lateral move will be dictated solely by a desire to get paid more, but there's no way around it as a legit potential differentiator.
Beyond the financial angle, leaving the Vikings for one of their division rivals would invite the idea that Flores and O'Connell don't have a great relationship. From the outside looking in, that doesn't appear to be the case, but it's hard to ever truly know unless or until something changes.
Until Flores' situation is resolved, bold ideas about who could try to pry him away from Minnesota to run their defense may come out. And in line with that, people who cover division rivals can have bold dreams about that team poaching him.
Not that it needs to be said at this point, and he will presumably go through the upcoming head coach hiring cycle before deciding anything. But it'll be up to the Vikings to shut down all the speculation about Flores making a lateral move if/when the time comes for it to be done.