The Minnesota Vikings stand alone as the NFL's only remaining unbeaten team through seven weeks of the 2026 season. And are they serious Super Bowl contenders? Bill Belichick famously used to suggest that the season doesn't truly begin until Thanksgiving is out the way so, still a month shy of that mark, playoff forecasts feel a touch premature in what is shaping up as yet another wide-open campaign.
The Vikings are a perfect 6-0 at the top of a competitive NFC North division, though it ought to be remembered that the Indianapolis Colts flew out to an 8-2 mark last season only to lose seven straight and miss out on the postseason altogether. Momentum swings dangerously in the NFL; for now, Kevin O'Connell's side deserve their flowers. They extended their winning start with a 16-10 victory over the Colts on Sunday, while the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs were both dealt their first losses of the season by the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks, respectively.
Minnesota's early success has featured wins over four teams with losing records in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Colts, while they have taken down Championship-aspiring divisional rivals in both the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears - their victory over the latter serving up quintessential evidence as to their driving force. That, of course, being Brian Flores' defense, the dominance of which is only further strengthening his case as the best assistant in football and surely nudging him closer to another head coaching job in the league, should he want one. The Bears made a fierce statement in the opening week of the season when they dropped 59 points on the Carolina Panthers, before then running into Flores, against whom Ben Johnson's offense managed a solitary field goal in what had been billed as a clash of football masterminds.
Caleb Williams had been blitzed on 81.8 per cent of his dropbacks before exiting with an injury in the fourth quarter, the third-highest mark recorded in a game since at least 2018. Flores would ramp up those numbers further this past weekend as the Vikings blitzed Daniel Jones on 85.2 per cent of dropbacks - the highest blitz rate by any defense in a game since the NextGen Stats era began in 2016. What's more, of that 85.2 per cent, they created pressure on 60.9 per cent of blitzes, which amounted to all four of their sacks in the game.
There is no defensive scheme in the league that comes close to being as aggressive as that of Flores', whose sending of the blitz serves as the nucleus to how he operates. "I tell our guys all the time, 'If we're going to go down, we're going to go down a certain way. We're going to go down blitzing people,'" Flores said earlier this season.
Flores' defense ranks second only to the Seahawks in total yards allowed and passing yards allowed per game, while being 10th against the run and first in scoring, having surrendered just 12.3 points per game on average. They are first in EPA/play (measuring down-to-down efficiency), second in dropback and third in rush EPA, with a league-high success rate. In fact, the Vikings defense lead the NFL in EPA/play since Flores took over as defensive coordinator in 2023.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
