Jourdan Rodrigue – Aug. 18, 2025 – New York Times – Athletic

In a photo on Haley Metellus’ Instagram account, she and her husband, Vikings safety Josh Metellus, walk hand-in-hand through a winter wonderland.

EAGAN, Minn. — The most interesting player on the NFL’s most metamorphosic defense doesn’t have an actual position.

Josh Metellus, like the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive system, can be many things at once. On the whiteboard, when innovative defensive coordinator Brian Flores is installing concepts, Metellus is represented by a number of “Xs.”

All over the whiteboard are the Xs: in the defensive backfield, where Metellus could rotate from a nickel defender on one snap to a deeper safety position on another; “stacked” a few yards behind an outside cornerback in a coverage disguise; in the box as an inside linebacker; drawn into every rushing position across the line of scrimmage.

“So we call it the ‘X-Man’ spot,” Metellus told The Athletic, his easy grin slowly spreading across his face as he explained what exactly it is he does for the Vikings. “I’m all Xs … where I started to go with it, then you talk about the blue lady in ‘X-Men,’ Mystique. Her being able to just fit different roles while still being elite at what she does.”

X-man. Special. Linebacker. Safety. Nickel. Not normal. Amoeba. Joker. Handyman. “Star.” Metellus has tried on all the names and descriptions since he emerged in this defense in 2023.

“I just tell people (now) that I’m a great football player,” he said. “I might not be elite at one position, but I’m elite at football. That’s what matters. That’s the game we play.”

The Vikings defense under Flores is the only of its kind in the NFL. It is a shape-shifting, ultra-aggressive scheme that features constant rotations by multiple defenders, the most exotic blitz packages in professional football and disguised pressure that doesn’t just bewilder quarterbacks but also sometimes fools advanced statistical tracking systems. The Vikings blitzed at a league-leading 40.7 percent rate in 2024, according to Next Gen Stats, and they frequently show pre-snap looks that suggest they will send extra rushers but then drop multiple defenders in coverage instead.

It means the 5-foot-11 and 207-pound Metellus, listed as a safety on the Vikings’ roster, is sometimes categorized by tracking systems as playing defensive tackle snaps. According to Next Gen Stats, Metellus aligned at the line of scrimmage more often than any other NFL defensive back in 2024. He might be playing an inside gap, as a defensive tackle would, in order to execute a certain pressure call or fit a run like a linebacker. He might also be dropping into an inside linebacker position after the snap, or even further into the defensive backfield in coverage as a safety or nickel. In the eyes of the quarterback, any of this could be true — and he has no way of knowing what Metellus will do.

Josh Metellus snaps by position in 2024

Edge	59 (19 pass rushes)
DT	69 (27 pass rushes)
LB	408
Slot	267
CB	17
FS	98
SS	20

By design, the defense has no tendencies, so opposing offenses have nothing to latch on to in order to diagnose a given play. The defense as a collective becomes a living entity, one with multiple personalities. All of those are aggressive, and somehow connected.

“Multiple personalities playing as one,” Metellus said.What You Should Read NextThe magic behind Brian Flores’ Minnesota Vikings defense unlike any otherFlores’ elaborate disguises keep offenses guessing and he allows his players to be a big part of the creative process.

As unpredictable as it can be for the opponent, Flores’ defense is made for his players’ curiosity. There is always a new idea to try. Installations can be more like group incubator sessions, players say, where they are able to throw out and then test new ideas along with their coaches. Where most teams hold scripted walkthroughs during practice weeks, Vikings defenders operate even in that typically structured setting as though their play calls could change at any moment.

Curiosity is in Metellus’ nature. He wants to see behind every door — and into every position room.

First, he needed those doors to open. A sixth-round pick out of Michigan in 2020, Metellus could barely cling to the roster during his first few seasons in the NFL.

During a recent conversation, he gestured to a long road that runs behind Minnesota’s practice facility, just barely visible beyond the emerald grass and young pine trees at the field’s perimeter.

“I’ll never forget (in 2020) … got that phone call like, ‘bring your iPad in,” he said. Metellus drove to his home down that very road to get his iPad (which held the playbook), knowing he’d be driving right back to get cut.

Metellus made it back on the roster later that fall, mostly playing on special teams for the next two seasons. But then Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell hired Flores in 2023. Flores watched Metellus’ previous preseason games (the only real defensive snaps he got), and told the young defender he believed he could do more. They began to create something new, with Flores adding bits and pieces to Metellus’ role throughout that spring. He committed to the challenge. The road beyond the practice facility reminded him every day as he took the field of the alternative.

“Do whatever they throw at me, and find a way to get it done,” Metellus said was his mantra through that time. “I’m not scared to fail. I know what it’s like to be that 54th, 53rd guy on the roster fighting for your spot every day.”

Now, Metellus rarely comes off the field. Over the last two seasons, he has played 2,056 snaps (about 90 percent of all defensive snaps since 2023). He also still plays on special teams. This spring, Metellus signed a three-year, $36 million contract. That’s about $3 million per defensive position he played in 2024, for anyone keeping track.

“So proud of him. So excited for him,” said Flores shortly after the deal became official. “… I don’t think there is anybody who has (better) embodied the kind of things we want to be defensively.”

If you don’t think I’m the most versatile defender in the league then you don’t watch the Vikings enough 🤷🏾‍♂️

— Joshua Metellus (@NoExcuses_23) July 29, 2025

Atypical of most players across the NFL, Metellus now attends meetings in multiple position rooms. He starts his week by watching an opponent’s first- and second-down tendencies the Monday after games.

On either Wednesdays or Thursdays, he’ll be with the linebackers working on run fits. When the pass rush plan is finalized, Metellus goes to those meetings, too, and reps into those drills on the field. He ends back with the coverage players to make sure he’s understanding how the entire puzzle fits together. Flores holds large multi-position installation meetings throughout the week so that defenders can understand the larger purpose behind each others’ roles. It’s a good thing, too, because the defensive coordinator has been known to change elements of the game plan as late as Friday or Saturday.

Metellus has become adept at adjusting accordingly, relying on his in-depth study of the opponent earlier in the week and on details gleaned from position meetings to inform how he should attack from his varied spots. It’s a massive amount of information, but he doesn’t take many notes (he says his handwriting “sucks”). Metellus doesn’t think he has a photographic memory, but if he sees or hears something, he can understand how it should be applied on the field, and he never forgets it. Coaches even pick his brain as the week of preparation continues.

“Throughout the week, it’s cool to have certain coaches, like the outside linebackers coach, to come up and talk to me about ball. Then I get the D-line coach, the linebacker coach. It’s just really cool to be able to talk to all the coaches,” he said. “To be honest, it almost feels like I’m a coach.”

Metellus knows all the pass rush calls and all the linebacker adjustments. He knows when Flores needs him to disguise a pressure or a coverage and when to play it through.

“When you love football the way I do, it’s all I think about,” he said. “I’m constantly going through my head of different things, different scenarios.”

At a joint practice against the New England Patriots last week, Flores didn’t hold back, and Metellus changed forms fluidly from snap to snap. First he aligned in the slot. Then he moved to the line of scrimmage, off the right edge. Then he dropped backward again, sinking to cover up a route after the snap. Then he moved into the interior middle of the field as a linebacker.

It looked like a dance, a set of movements concocted in some Flores fever dream about leverage and spatial control. Around him, and directed by middle linebacker Blake Cashman (who calls the defense as the “green dot” player connected via headset to Flores), other players orbited too.

“It’s having a high football IQ, and really understanding the game and the schematics of it,” Cashman said. “Josh is a guy on this defense that knows it at a high level. He’s so important to have on the field. … He’s a guy that helps make my job easier. There are times where we have to change the call and I gotta rush that call to the defensive line, and before I’m turning to the secondary to get them on the same page he’s already, like, understanding what page I’m on and he’s making those calls (into the secondary) already.”

As he travels from room to room and job to job, Metellus will sometimes scroll through texts from Haley, his wife. She is, Metellus said with pride, as big a football junkie as he is, with a similar curiosity.

“We’ve got new (defensive) packages in?” she will ask him.

“So what positions are you playing this week?”

Jourdan Rodrigue is a senior NFL writer for The Athletic. Previously, she covered the Los Angeles Rams for The Athletic, the Carolina Panthers for The Athletic and The Charlotte Observer, and Penn State football for the Centre Daily Times. She is an ASU grad, a recipient of the PFWA’s Terez A. Paylor Emerging Writer award (2021) and the creator of “The Playcallers” and “Finding Rams” series. Follow Jourdan on Twitter @JourdanRodrigue