Any Minnesota Vikings fan who’s seen Brian Flores’ defense in action knows how great Josh Metellus is. Flores’ defense arguably doesn’t work without him, or at least, doesn’t work nearly as well. Anything Flores needs on a specific play, Metellus does, and does well. He’s primarily an in-the-box defender or slot corner, but if the play requires him to line up at corner or the line of scrimmage, so be it.
However, the Vikings haven’t had to use Metellus as a free safety frequently. When you have Harrison Smith and Camryn Bynum there to protect the top of the defense and excel at ballhawking, there’s not much need for Metellus to flex those muscles. It happened occasionally — Flores would often move Smith around, in particular — but Metellus just took just 90 snaps as a free safety last season, up from 55 in 2023.
The Vikings entered Week 1 needing Smith. The team allowed Bynum to walk as a free agent, relying on the aging future Hall of Famer to continue playing at a high level. And then Smith got sick and was out for Monday night’s matchup with the Chicago Bears. The Bears have never been a major passing threat, but with D.J. Moore, Rome Odunze, Luther Burden III, Cole Kmet, and Colston Loveland, they have a surprising amount of pass-catching talent. Losing an experienced safety like Smith was a big blow. And it looked especially shaky when Caleb Williams started the game 10 for 10.
But Minnesota’s defense settled in, and Metellus, capably filling in Smith’s void, was a big piece of the puzzle. Metellus spent 47 of his 67 snaps playing free safety, more than anyone on the team except Theo Jackson (55). Many of those plays involved him being a safety valve for the defense, but that didn’t stop him from making some impact plays. He was covering Moore when Williams overthrew his receiver on fourth down in the second quarter, getting his hand on the ball to ensure Moore couldn’t make some sort of miracle catch. He forced a punt in the third quarter by covering up Loveland to hold him to four yards on third-and-13.
That was the only completion Metellus allowed that night on three targets against. No damage done.
Even during Chicago’s opening drive, Williams was forced into making spectacular plays because Metellus took away the easier options. On Williams’ 17-yard sideline throw to Odunze, Williams looked to the middle of the field, where Metellus was cutting off Moore, before scrambling outside. Before his touchdown run, he didn’t start scrambling until again looking Metellus’ way and saw he had Kmet covered. Granted, Williams made the spectacular happen, but for most quarterbacks, that doesn’t happen.
We didn’t see many of the flashy plays Smith makes on the regular, or the elite choreography Bynum brought to the table. Still, Metellus’ presence kept Williams from exploiting the middle of the field. It might have been easy for Ben Johnson to see Smith out of the game and Flores using Metellus alongside two inexperienced options in Jackson and Jay Ward and say, Let’s test them.
The Bears never did. Their one long completion down the middle was to Kmet on Chicago’s garbage-time touchdown drive, which happened on one of the few snaps Metellus was playing in the box.
At the end of the night, Metellus wound up with the second-highest (behind Ward) PFF grade on the team with a 75.6 score. He, Ward, and Andrew Van Ginkel were the only Vikings to earn a grade of 70 or higher in coverage. Maybe the erratic Williams did Flores’ unit some favors, but there was very little to nitpick with Metellus and his assignments.
Remember, Smith brings thousands of NFL plays at free safety to the table, while Metellus has had just 316 snaps of experience there for his career. But we didn’t see mental mistakes from Metellus, and therefore, we didn’t see much dropoff from Minnesota not having a Hall of Famer on the team.
Then again, why wouldn’t he be able to do that? He’s the guy who stands anywhere and does anything he’s asked. Metellus has the physical attributes to play everywhere, but just as crucially, we saw how important his intelligence and understanding of Flores’ defense are to the Vikings. Those are the things that enabled him to slip seamlessly into the Smith role, and those smarts picked Minnesota up when they needed it most. There’s a reason the Vikings were willing to hand him $36 million this offseason, after all.