Kevin Seifert, ESPN Workers Author
EAGAN, Minn. — It was April 2020, and Brian Flores, head coach of the Miami Dolphins, was sitting in entrance of a digicam for a video information convention in his residence workplace. He was about to debate the Dolphins’ draft, however first, he held his cellular phone to the digicam.
On the cellphone’s display have been pictures of two males Flores referred to as mentors, each of whom had died within the early levels of the COVID-19 pandemic. One was Myles Coker, a former convicted heroin vendor and champion of jail sentencing reform in New York Metropolis. The opposite was Michael Hankins Sr., who Flores described as a father determine to children in Brooklyn.
Flores did not understand it on the time, however his reference to Coker would play a key function as Flores’ profession took dramatic turns. The Dolphins fired him on Jan. 10, 2022, and he filed a class-action lawsuit towards the NFL and a number of groups alleging racial discrimination in its hiring practices. After spending 2022 as a Pittsburgh Steelers assistant, Flores was supplied the defensive coordinator place with the Minnesota Vikings.
Flores had by no means lived or labored away from the East Coast, however thankfully, he had two connections within the Minneapolis space: Cliff and Kelvin Coker, the sons of Myles, who settled there almost twenty years in the past. The Vikings employed Flores on Feb. 6, 2023, establishing an emotional reunion.
“That is like household,” Flores stated lately.
Reuniting with the Coker brothers helped put in movement a transition that has largely refocused consideration on Flores’ soccer acumen amid the Vikings’ 5-1 begin this season. Minnesota has proved a welcoming residence as his lawsuit works its approach by way of the courts.
Whereas the exterior soccer world speculates on whether or not he’ll obtain one other head-coaching job, Flores has quietly constructed a soccer and social consolation zone in 20 months with the Vikings.
“Once we heard Brian Flores was coming to Minnesota,” Cliff Coker stated, “my brother and I needed to ensure he was surrounded by nice individuals. He is like a brother to us. And I do know that he genuinely loves how warmly Minnesota has embraced him and his household.”
With the blessing of common supervisor Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell, his presence contained in the constructing extends past that of a typical defensive coordinator. For instance, Flores met a number of occasions this summer time with rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy, earlier than the No. 10 choose suffered a season-ending knee harm, to offer recommendations on NFL defensive technique, and he was central to the acquisition of a lot of the defensive free brokers the Vikings acquired this spring.
He and his spouse, Jen, have hosted social gatherings at their residence for gamers, coaches and households in every of the previous two summers, and that comradeship has continued in the course of the season with standing invites for Thursday night gatherings at native eating places.
The Flores household has embraced the suburb of Eden Prairie, the place they settled, because of a realtor with whom the Cokers related him.
Flores co-coached his sons’ flag soccer staff there final spring. And he even credited the daddy of one in all his daughter’s associates for suggesting this spring that he evaluate the tape on pending NFL free agent linebacker Blake Cashman, a graduate of Eden Prairie Excessive College who performed on the College of Minnesota. The Vikings signed Cashman, at Flores’ urging, on the primary day of free company in March. He is their main tackler, regardless of lacking a recreation due to a toe harm.
Flores will convey the NFL’s top-rated protection, per DVOA (defense-adjusted worth over common), to face the Los Angeles Rams Thursday evening (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
He declined to debate his expertise in Minnesota with ESPN intimately, saying he needed to maintain his concentrate on the staff. Throughout coaching camp, nevertheless, he stated he was having “the most effective time of my life.” Extra lately, talking to the small group of reporters who cowl the staff, Flores left little doubt about his present state of ease.
“Minnesota has welcomed me with open arms,” Flores stated, “Me and my household, they’ve proven us a whole lot of love, and I am exhibiting Minnesota a whole lot of love again. And actually that is speaking in regards to the state and the individuals right here, however clearly this constructing as nicely.”
FLORES’ LAWSUIT, FILED in January 2022 and amended two months later to incorporate further coaches, is stalled in a preliminary dispute as a result of the NFL believes it ought to be topic to inside arbitration fairly than litigation, in line with courtroom paperwork.
Though Flores has been one of many NFL’s top-performing assistant coaches this season, the continuing litigation might show a big impediment to parlaying his defensive success into one other head-coaching job.
Requested about that risk within the spring, following a training cycle throughout which he obtained no head-coaching interviews, Flores stated: “There isn’t any solution to know” if it is an obstacle. Both approach, there are different potential obstacles.
Two of his former gamers in Miami, quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Ryan Fitzpatrick, have spoken publicly since his departure about the best way he coached and handled Tagovailoa. Fitzpatrick stated throughout an NFL Prime Video broadcast that Tagovailoa was “damaged” by Flores’ teaching model. Tagovailoa referred to Flores as a “horrible particular person” throughout an interview on “The Dan Le Batard Present.”
Flores was respectful in response to the Tagovailoa interview, saying he was “genuinely, genuinely completely happy for the success that Tua has had” and including there have been issues he “might do higher for certain.”
He additionally stated he has mirrored on his time in Miami and regarded for tactics to evolve and enhance. However these near him do not sense he has finished so explicitly to burnish his head-coaching resume.
“It is simply not his ‘why,'” Vikings move recreation coordinator/defensive backs coach Daronte Jones stated. “He is deserving to perform that once more and get that chance, but it surely’s not a driving pressure and never one thing we ever discuss.”
Stated security Josh Metellus: “Actually that is likely to be what the media is anxious about, however what we see is a man who’s simply anxious about teaching good soccer.
“He is the Vikings’ defensive coordinator and needs to win doing that.”
There have been no hints of participant distaste for Flores’ model, and actually, NFL gamers ranked him because the league’s fourth-best defensive coordinator to play for within the annual NFL Gamers Affiliation staff report card undertaking. On the very least, Vikings defensive gamers are well-equipped to thrive within the intense surroundings he creates.
“Personalities differ, clearly,” Metellus stated. “However you may simply inform it comes from a spot of ardour not from a spot of nagging, or once you really feel a coach is on you simply to be on you. It comes from a spot of, ‘I do know what you have received and I do know what you are able to do, let me see it’ sort of factor.”
THE VIKINGS HAVE spent two years gathering a gaggle of gamers with related mindsets. Of the 17 gamers this season who’ve obtained no less than 70 defensive snaps, 15 have three or extra years of expertise. Just one is a rookie, and the group’s common time spent within the NFL is 6.6 seasons. 9 are newcomers to the Vikings this season who Flores helped establish and advocated for internally. Three had performed for him beforehand with the New England Patriots or Dolphins.
In keeping with analysis by ESPN’s Invoice Barnwell, these numbers give the Vikings the NFL’s oldest protection, primarily based on snap-weighted ages.
Snap-weighted age to this point for 2024
5 oldest groups: MIN, SF, ATL, MIA, NYJ
5 youngest groups: GB, NYG, JAX, PIT, LV pic.twitter.com/0vR1bIInA1— Invoice Barnwell (@billbarnwell) October 21, 2024
“I believe he desires to be round the fitting substances,” stated inside linebackers coach Mike Siravo, who was a graduate assistant at Boston School for 2 seasons when Flores performed for the Eagles. “That is people who find themselves accountable, who maintain themselves to a excessive customary, who do not make excuses and have a get-it-done mindset.
“To not say that wasn’t right here earlier than, however as you get older, these are the sorts of individuals you wish to be round.”
Flores stated this summer time he has “tried to use the issues that I might do higher and the issues that I’ve discovered during the last two, three years.” Vikings gamers who’ve spoken to ESPN over the course of the season have met him midway.
“It is difficult,” stated linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, who performed three seasons for Flores with the Dolphins after which reunited with him this spring. “He is aggressive and he desires to win and he desires to have the most effective protection within the league. He desires to be the most effective.
“He at all times says that him getting right here was exhausting, and he loves it exhausting. He loves a problem. That is what makes robust individuals robust.”
Linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill was drafted by the Patriots in 2016 when Flores was the staff’s linebackers coach. He later performed for Flores in Miami in the course of the 2020 season.
“You have to be coachable, primary, and open to vary,” Grugier-Hill stated. “We do not do conventional and traditional issues right here. So in the event you’re a man that has finished issues a method your complete time, that is in all probability not a spot for you.”
Cornerback Stephon Gilmore first met Flores when he signed with the Patriots in 2017.
“He is any person who will hold it actual with you,” Gilmore stated. “He is particular person, however he desires to get the most effective out of you as a participant, so he’ll do no matter he can to do this and maintain you accountable to convey that out of you.
“I believe all coaches ought to be like that. The game we play, you may’t be delicate.”
Metellus had been largely a particular groups participant for 3 seasons in Minnesota earlier than Flores tapped him for a hybrid security/linebacker function that has put him on the sphere for 92.9% of the defensive snaps for the reason that begin of the 2023 season. He described Flores’ model as being “very exhausting on you” and never “in a loving approach, as a result of it is soccer, however in a approach that comes from the center.”
He added: “However I like that kind of teaching. I’ve at all times had that kind of teaching and it simply resonates with me. I wish to be nice. I do not need any person telling me what number of good issues I did. I would like any person teaching me up and telling me what I can do higher to get higher.”
JONES, THE VIKINGS’ move recreation coordinator/defensive backs coach, retains a web page in his pocket book for what he calls “Flo Ideas.” He has discovered that Flores’ thoughts “works in another way,” he stated, and he does not wish to neglect the best way Flores arrived at a few of his schematic concepts.
Ultimately, nevertheless, Jones stated the time the Vikings’ protection spends collectively away from the sphere is not any much less necessary than the wild schemes Flores devises and employs.
“What you are constructing is relationships, and also you’re constructing camaraderie,” Jones stated. “Seeing guys exterior of the constructing, and so they get to see you exterior of the constructing, the real relationships.
“This can be a individuals’s enterprise, and he is all about relationships. He will get the gamers round his children. The gamers convey their children, and that is the way you get household surroundings. You would be stunned what can occur in the event you simply step away for somewhat bit and get to know individuals on a private foundation.”
This 12 months’s summer time gathering on the Flores residence, Metellus stated, included catered meals, taking pictures hoops in an indoor basketball courtroom — a staple for professional athletes in Minnesota in the course of the chilly winters — and greater than a dozen new households attending to know each other. Gilmore attended a couple of days after signing a free agent contract, and Flores lately stated he was shocked to see how a lot Gilmore’s oldest son — now 9 — had grown since he final noticed him in New England.
“Flo will at all times do his factor,” Gilmore stated. “However the tradition right here in Minnesota is simply totally different.”
Certainly, Flores has benefitted from O’Connell’s work to determine a player-centric work surroundings that has earned rave critiques within the annual NFLPA survey.
Households attend nearly each coaching camp observe, and after one in all them this summer time, Flores launched himself to the dad and mom of rookie defensive sort out Levi Drake Rodriguez. He then spent almost quarter-hour asking them about their son, a part of a player-by-player effort to “work out what buttons to push or buttons to not push,” Flores stated.
“The tradition Flo has established on protection has been in keeping with what [O’Connell] has for the tradition of the staff,” Jones stated. “That is off the sphere, but in addition on the sphere, the place we’re figuring out the model of play in a recreation and simply attacking on each side of the ball. So Flo was an ideal match for [O’Connell], and that has made his transition right here that a lot smoother.”
And when he’s away from the Vikings’ facility, Flores and his household have an prolonged set of relationships solid by way of their friendship with the Cokers and their households. In 1991, Myles Coker was sentenced to life in jail for dealing heroin. Though federal sentencing tips for drug offenses have been loosened shortly thereafter, and allowed for retroactive changes, he served 23 years.
“Our dad liked Brian very, very a lot,” Cliff Coker stated. “And simply watching him and listening to about his success all through the years, it was simply at all times a speaking level for our father and us, and it was at all times a cheerful dialog.”
Whereas the soccer world wonders if Flores will turn out to be a head coach once more, having the Cokers close by supplies a “household vibe” to dwelling in Minnesota, Flores stated. He would possibly seem snug, however that is not his model — “I do not suppose he is ever snug,” Siravo stated, “and that is what makes him nice.”
