Everybody knew the wild card going into this coaching cycle for the Chicago Bears would be Kevin Warren. The new team president wasn’t part of the last hire in 2022, having still been the Big Ten commissioner at the time. Warren has a long list of connections in the NFL stretching back to the late 1990s. It was a given that he’d dig into those to start forming a picture of which coaches he should be looking into. Based on a new report, one name has already surfaced in that process.
According to Albert Breer of the MMQB, Warren reached out to several friends he still had in Minnesota from his days working with the Vikings. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is the name that jumped out immediately.
Another name connected to the position is Minnesota Vikings DC Brian Flores. He was a Boston College teammate of Poles in 2003, and the two have similar roots in the Bill Belichick system (Poles worked under Scott Pioli in Kansas City). I’m also told that Warren’s vetting of Flores with all his old connections in Minnesota (Warren worked for the Vikings for 15 years) yielded strong reviews for the 43-year-old. He will, of course, have to lay out a plan for how things would be different with Williams than they were with Tua Tagovailoa in Miami.
Flores has done a tremendous job turning around the Vikings defense over the past two years. They rank 4th in points allowed this season and 2nd against the run. They also lead the league with 31 takeaways. He is a huge part of Minnesota’s success this season.
For one, he’s likely being urged to give it serious thought because of Ryan Poles. He and the defensive coordinator were teammates in college. However, there is another element involved. Flores has been a head coach before. Warren’s history in the NFL is marked mostly by his teams hiring head coaches with extensive experience. Dick Vermeil won a Super Bowl in 1999 with the St. Louis Rams. Detroit hired Steve Mariucci after his successful run in San Francisco. Both Brad Childress and Mike Zimmer had been in the league for decades before arriving in Minnesota.
Flores was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins for three years. In that time, he went from 5-11 to 10-6 and 9-8. It was an impressive feat, considering he had a largely mediocre roster for most of that time. Unfortunately, a falling out with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and a lawsuit against the league for racial discrimination clouded his departure. He has a reputation for being hard-nosed, disciplined, and demanding. He coaches hard. Kevin Warren may feel that is what the organization needs.
The question is whether Flores can offer a better plan for Caleb Williams than he had for Tagovailoa. Not only was he accused of being unnecessarily cruel, but he also went through four coordinators in three years.
