Defeats for the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers in Week 7 means the Minnesota Vikings are the NFL’s final unbeaten team at 6-0; what has driven their perfect start to the 2026 season? And can Kevin O’Connell’s side sustain their success to be genuine Super Bowl contenders? The Minnesota Vikings stand alone as the NFL’s only remaining unbeaten team through seven weeks of the 2026 season. But is it sustainable?
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 EPA 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. Their 74 points allowed this season is also the fewest of any team through six games since 2019, while their 21 sacks is tied for most in the league. And as much as it is a reflection of Flores, it is also a credit to the depth and versatility he has when it comes to personnel on defense. Inside linebackers Blake Cashman and Eric Wilson have exemplified the strength of Flores’ approach with the lateral speed, physicality downhill and play diagnosis in coverage to disguise their defense’s intentions; their ability to rush the passer, to smother running backs and retreat off the line of scrimmage post-snap has become a nightmare for opposing offenses to ID them.
Cashman was unstoppable last time out with two sacks and five pressures on 12 rush attempts against the Colts, while Hall of Fame-bound veteran safety Harrison Smith became just the third player in history to record 40 interceptions and 20-plus sacks in his career behind Ronde Barber and Charles Woodson. He is a dream fit for Flores, who continues to squeeze every ounce of all-action football from the 37-year-old. Dallas Turner, meanwhile, is stringing together a breakout year as the featured pass rusher on a unit designed for everybody to feast. He’s assumed a heightened role this season after the departure of Jonathan Greenard.
Flores has become a master for controlled chaos, the unrivalled frequency of his blitzes tormenting teams when he decides to simulate rushers before dropping them into coverage. At times there could be eight or nine purple jerseys dotted across the line of scrimmage, only for two or three to drop in a game of guesswork. According to ESPN Stats, the Vikings rank first in yards per attempt and yards per dropback when they rush just four men or fewer, evidencing their influence when not in blitzing scenarios. “The problem for the offense is you don’t have enough guys to block all those guys,” said Sky Sports NFL’s Jeff Reinebold.
“They’re always plus one. But who that one is, you don’t know! “What they do a good job of is they’ll step at the line of scrimmage and then get into their drop, so now as a quarterback or an offensive lineman or a running back, it’s that he’s up and then you’ve guessed wrong. “It is a high risk defense because if you guess wrong on the other side you better have some guys who can cover.
But what it does is it puts incredible mental pressure on the offense.” Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Is the Vikings’ success sustainable? For as good as the defense has played, the answer to that questions likely rests on the shoulders of O’Connell’s offense – which has so far failed to convince it can reward the efforts of Flores’ unit with playoff-calibre performances. It is a reason to be cautious when it comes to Minnesota’s perfect record. The Vikings offense currently ranks third-worst in total yards, third-worst in passing, 12th in rushing yards, 23rd in points per game, 30th in EPA/play, last in success rate, 25th in dropback EPA, 27th in rush EPA, 30th in dropback success rate and 27th in rush success rate.
It makes for ugly reading adjacent to Flores’ attack dogs. “I think our guys are very confident that we’re not far off,” said O’Connell after the win over Indianapolis. “The ‘far off’ changes a little bit as you go, but I’m very, very confident we’ll get it going.” Minnesota have jumped between quarterbacks in recent years, declining to follow up on Sam Darnold’s career-resurrecting campaign in 2024, only to see him win a Super Bowl in Seattle last season. They spent time with Carson Wentz under center and eventually decided 2024 first-round draft pick JJ McCarthy was not their future.
Concidentally, for all O’Connell has come to be known as a quarterback whisperer, McCarthy just looked like a player reborn as the New York Giants beat the Houston Texans in the former No 10 picks’ first start for Big Blue. Kyler Murray arrived from the Cardinals this offseason tasked with proving himself as a legitimate answer at quarterback, having seen his career fizzle out in Arizona. So far he has underwhelmed, completing 83 of 125 passes for a 30th-ranked 812 yards and just three touchdowns to two interceptions. It has amounted to 23 catches from just 31 targets for a 44th-ranked 302 yards through the air for Justin Jefferson.
To put that into context, Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty has 34 catches from 45 targets for 312 yards. Murray and O’Connell have a debilitating problem if they continue to fail in getting the ball to their best player, and perhaps the best receiver in the NFL. Minnesota’s 10 touchdowns are tied for the third-fewest in NFL history for a 6-0 team, per ESPN Stats; right now Brian Flores’ defense is the Bugatti in the trailer park. How long can the Vikings live by such glaring imbalance?
Upcoming games against the 4-2 Lions, Josh Allen’s 5-1 Buffalo Bills, the 4-3 Packers, Brock Purdy’s 6-1 49ers and the rising Atlanta Falcons will deliver some better answers. Are they the NFL’s best team? No. But for now their blemish-free record suggests otherwise, spearheaded by their genius defensive architect.
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