Harrison Phillips is jacked up about new-look Vikings defense

Vikings veteran DT talked about the offseason at OTAs and... he seemed pretty pumped

Photo courtesy Minnesota Vikings

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — The Minnesota Vikings won’t be playing a counts-in-the-standings, real-life, honest-to-goodness football game for three months but if you listened to defensive tackle Harrison Phillips talk at the podium following Monday’s OTA practice you would think they were set to kick off in three minutes.

Phillips was so enthusiastic in his breakdown of the team’s offseason moves and young quarterback JJ McCarthy that at one point I dropped a comment to him that was so hard-hitting that Dan Rather would be brought to tears.

“You seem pretty jacked up about this team, huh,” I said.

Take that, Woodward and Bernstein.

“It's exciting when you see the moves that [the front office] made and you see the drive from the top down,” Phillips responded.

It has been interesting to observe different veterans’ reactions to the Vikings offseason. Jonathan Greenard had a chip on his shoulder and demanded that everyone look in the mirror for more. They made T-shirts out of his insistence for extra effort. Brian O’Neill said he didn’t care whether the offense runs or passes 75 times, he just wants to win. Josh Metellus pointed to Harrison Smith coming back as proof that they have something special. And Phillips, well, he talked a mile a minute about all the ways that his unit could change because of the massive investment in veterans Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen.

“These these two guys that we signed in my room might be you know some of the most unique skill sets that I've ever got to play with and so really excited for that can bring to our defense,” Phillips said.

The veteran defensive tackle also answered better questions about the specifics of how he sees the defensive line playing out now that Hargrave and Allen are in the mix, starting with whether he would see less playing time because of the additions.

“I would imagine that like most defensive lines, you see a pretty solid rotation,” Phillips said. “The three of us are older players. So I think anytime that you can, go out there and platoon three to five to six players… you can you can really attack with waves. And because of the depth we have, we'll truly have waves that we can throw.”

Last year Phillips was on the field for 672 snaps, the third most of his career behind 2023 (838) and 2022 (693). When he was in Buffalo in 2021, the 29-year-old DT played 493 snaps and produced the highest PFF grade of his career. That factoid does need more context because he is asked to do more challenging things in Flores’s defense but there is no question that keeping everyone fresh is a benefit.

During Phillips’s time in Minnesota, he has seen a lot of DTs come and go alongside him. His interior partners like Khyris Tonga, James Lynch, Ross Blacklock, Jonathan Bullard and Jerry Tiller all have something in common: They were not very highly paid.

As the Vikings cleaned up the salary cap mess left by the previous regime, interior D-line was a position was left taped and glued together. Last year the unit did an excellent job of stuffing the run (sixth in yards per attempt allowed) but the pressure that they created up the middle usually had to come from role-playing edge players like Jihad Ward and Patrick Jones.

Now with Hargrave and Allen, who have combined for 97.5 career sacks, Phillips is joined by players who have long track records of getting after the quarterback. It’s been a long time since Phillips had guys like that alongside him.

“From the pass rush standpoint, they have some things that are being coached by them that I've never really had coached me before and have like token pass rush moves that they've found a lot of success with and work counters off of those moves,” Phillips said. “[Hargrave] specifically is his get-off. The only other player I feel like has played similar to that who I had some time with was [Buffalo DT] Ed Oliver, where he's kind of known for his first step off the football, and a lot of time when you have a player that's so vertically disruptive.”

Several young players are also looking to force their way into the rotation like Levi Drake Rodriguez, Jalen Redmond and Taki Tiamani, they can simply offer more challenges to the opposing offense.

“The versatility of the different packages, ‘hey, this package, we got these three, this package, we have these two, now we have these four, now we have just this one,’” Phillips said. “And you're able to throw so many different elements at so many players who can play different techniques along the line. I see snap counts evolving over what type of team we're playing and what type of offense we're attacking and whose skill set could be the best strength for that.”

“We would like to have so many different bullets in the chamber that we can play teams of vastly different ways in vastly different fronts,” he added.

One of the biggest questions about the new-look D-line is whether Brian Flores will continue to be the most blitz-heavy defensive coordinator in the NFL or if his blitz-happy ways over the past few seasons were a product of the lack of pass-rushing personnel on the interior of the D-line. Will he still be sending Blake Cashman, Josh Metellus, Harrison Smith and Ivan Pace Jr. like it’s going out of style or will they try to get after the quarterback with just the D-linemen and edge rushers?

Phillips likes the fact that opponents have to think about that now rather than knowing the Vikings were going to send extra rushers.

“Are we going to move and bring everybody? Are we not gonna move and bring everybody? I've said before, the threat of the bomb is just as scary as the bomb itself,” he said. “So are we bringing the bomb, or are we threatening the bomb? And I think we just need to evolve in that and with the new pieces we have, when you've got a Jonathan Greenard Dallas Turner, Javon Hargrave, a Jonathan Allen, and a Van Ginkel out there…It's a pretty aggressive pass-rushing group right there. Some of them are going to drop out and run in coverage. I just think that we are evolving in that sense, and we have some amazing players to help our scheme with that.”

Phillips also couldn’t be contained when talking about his observations about quarterback JJ McCarthy.

“He's gotten jacked up,” Phillips joked. “I don't know if you've seen a change is his demeanor but I thought it was really cool for his growth. I've constantly seen him go up to new players, introduce himself, dapping each other up, sitting on the couches and just having conversation where last year it was off to rehab, off to meetings. He understands that we have to build a family here and that you can't have unique results without unique relationships that we believe in.”

Phillips continued…

“Man, he's got some confidence. He reminds me of Josh Allen when I was with him in Buffalo, coming into his own and understanding the power that he has to lead this organization. And he's doing a fantastic job doing that.”

The veteran DT also mentioned that McCarthy came to him after getting hurt last year to pick his brain about how to better understand defensive fronts.

So what are we supposed to make of Phillips’s energy as it pertains to the D-line and McCarthy? It could be chalked up to simply being excited about football but there seems to be more to it. The players on the Vikings who have been around and seen a lot of different types of football teams can sense whether they have a real shot at competing for a championship or not.

I asked Phillips if there was a sense of urgency among the leadership group because of the way the offseason was handled. (I know, another heater).

“For the last three seasons when we've come in during OTA's and we said, ‘hey let's build the foundation,’ and then when you finish a season and half your roster leaves and you get a new season whole new staff or whole new teammates you have to start a foundation,” Phillips said. “So the conversation was we're gonna bring in enough like-minded individuals who know what success looks like that we don't we shouldn't have to rebuild the foundation we should be able to hit the gas and accomplish that when we're leaving here in OTAs in a couple weeks that the foundation already been set.”

It’s a noteworthy point that Phillips is making because historically fans and media have adored young teams that were on the rise, yet teams that win the Super Bowl are almost always veteran squads. Kevin O’Connell’s 2021 Rams, for example, were driven by veterans in their primes like Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham Jr., Von Miller and Jalen Ramsey. The Vikings took some risks this offseason to have players with injury histories who aren’t exactly in their primes. They are banking on experience being valuable.

“We're striving to be a championship worthy organization because we have some veterans that have found success in other places played in Super Bowls they've been able to jump on what we're building here,” Phillips said. “I think we're further along on June 2nd than we have been in previous off seasons while still working towards the same goal.”

So, yes, Phillips was pretty amped during his OTA press conference but it wasn’t without rationale. In the previous three seasons, the Vikings have entered talking about revamped rosters but mostly that referred to big names leaving in the offseason. This time around they kept the pillars of the roster and added players who have previously been stars elsewhere. It’s clear that players like Phillips can sense the moment.

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