Commanders hire Daronte Jones as defensive coordinator

Breaking down what defensive schemes Jones will likely bring to Washington

The Washington Commanders are hiring Daronte Jones to be their new defensive coordinator. Jones joins Washington from the Minnesota Vikings, where he served as the defensive pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach under Brian Flores. Jones hasn’t been a defensive coordinator at the NFL level, but did spend a year as the defensive coordinator at LSU in 2021. He’s worked under a number of impressive defensive minds, including Flores, Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo.

In a sense, it’s a surprising hire given that the Commanders didn’t interview him with their initial set of defensive coordinator candidates. The Commanders were reportedly looking for a more experienced candidate and did interview Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores for the job. I broke down some of the basics of a Flores in a post last week, if you missed it. But Flores opted to return to the Vikings, leaving the Commanders to expand their search. From there, things progressed quickly. On Sunday, news broke that the Commanders were interviewing Jones, seen as the right hand man of Flores for that impressive Vikings defense. A day later, news broke that the team was finalizing a deal to hire him.

So what can the Commanders expect from their new defensive coordinator? As he’s a first time defensive coordinator, it’s impossible to say for sure. But It’s largely expected that Jones will try and implement a similar style of defense to the one he helped Flores make so successful. Flores was the top defensive coordinator candidate for most fans because of his aggressive, blitz-heavy schemes so Jones should be an exciting hire for fans that wanted Flores. But there’s more detail to that defense than just all out blitzes. So let’s dive into what the Vikings did so well under Flores and Jones for hints of what Jones may look to run here in Washington.

Fronts

Let’s start up front. Under Flores and Jones, the Vikings primarily used a 3-4 base defense, consisting of three big interior defensive lineman, two smaller outside linebackers and two inside linebackers. With that front, they liked to keep both safeties back deep against a variety of personnel groups, trusting the front to defend the run.

Here’s a look at that basic 3-4 front from the Vikings against the Cowboys. You can see the different levels of the defense highlighted, with the three interior defensive lineman, the two outside linebackers and the two inside linebackers. You can also see both safeties back deep behind them. With three interior defensive lineman on the field, the outside linebackers on the edge can align wider, trusting the big guys inside to do the dirty work. The Vikings have a defensive tackle line up head up over the left tackle, another line up on the outside shoulder of the right guard and then a nose tackle in between them between the center and left guard.

The Cowboys attempt a counter run scheme here, pulling the left guard to the right side of the line with the tight end following behind him. Those interior guys do the dirty work they’re required to do. The defensive tackle between the right guard and right tackle takes on a double team and holds his ground, occupying both blockers as long as he can. With the double team occupied, the linebackers are free to attack. The linebacker to the play side fires out of a cannon and takes on the pulling tight end head on, standing him up in the hole and preventing the back from taking his run in the desired lane.

With the runner having the cut back, we can then appreciate the work done on the back side of the run. The nose tackle reads the guard pulling and knows he has a one-on-one with the center. He uses a quick swim move to toss the center aside and emerge in the cut back lane. The back is forced to cut back towards him due to the aggressive fill from the linebacker and the nose tackle quickly makes the tackle to keep the gain to a minimum.

But while the Vikings are a base 3-4 team under Jones and Flores, they are flexible with their personnel and their fronts.

On this play, we see a different personnel group from the Vikings. They’re in a big nickel subpackage with three safeties on the field. In any nickel package, the defense has to sacrifice either a linebacker or defensive lineman to get an extra defensive back on the field. On this occasion, the Vikings take one of their outside linebackers off the field. As a result, the interior defensive line shift over, making one of those big defensive tackles effectively a big or heavy defensive end as he aligns head up over the tight end aligned outside right tackle. The other defensive tackles shift over and the remaining outside linebacker lines up on the edge giving effectively a four-man front.

However, the Eagles are in 12 personnel, consisting of one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers. Both tight ends align tight to the right of the formation, as does receiver A.J. Brown. This causes the Vikings to shift their front again. This time, one of the inside linebackers works down to the edge and acts as an outside linebacker. To replace him inside, the Vikings walk one of their three safeties down into the box, effectively making him a linebacker.

While the Vikings are using 3-4 personnel here, there’s a lot of things they’re doing that we’ve seen from the Commanders over the past two years. We’ve seen bigger defensive tackles like Daron Payne and Javon Kinlaw shift outside to play as heavy ends. We’ve seen inside linebackers like Frankie Luvu walk down to the edge against run-heavy looks just like this too.

With a safety down in the box acting as a linebacker, the Eagles try and run right at him. But the Vikings anticipate that and call a run stunt. The defensive tackle and edge defender to that side both stunt inside, while the safety scrapes to the edge. The left guard and center struggle to pick up the stunting defenders as they both penetrated into the backfield and make the tackle for a loss.

So that’s an example of one big nickel package the Vikings used under Flores and Jones, but it was far from the only one. Another version of a big nickel package involved them keeping all three defensive lineman and both outside linebackers, instead substituting out an inside linebacker for the extra safety.

This play is a good example of that package. You can see all three interior defensive lineman once again, plus the two outside linebackers on the edge. Then there’s just one inside linebacker in the middle with three safeties back deep behind him. Depending on your preference, you could call this a 5-1 big nickel package or a 3-3-3 big nickel package. If you assume the outside linebackers are part of the front as edge rushers, then it’s more of a five-man front with one linebacker behind them. If you prefer to think of those outside linebackers as flexible linebackers that can move around, then you’d call it a three-man front with three linebackers and three safeties behind it.

Just like we saw in the previous clip, the offense thinks it can have success trying to run the ball against a big nickel front, especially with all three safeties back deep prior to the snap. However, the Vikings yet again anticipate that run coming. They use another stunt to help disrupt the blocking scheme. The defensive tackle lined up on the inside shoulder of the right tackle stunts inside across the face of the right guard into the A gap. The solo remaining inside linebacker then scrapes outside of the stunting defensive tackle to replace the gap lost by the stunt. To complete the stunt, one of the three deep safeties jumps up from deep to replace the linebacker lost to the stunt.

Run stunts can be risky as they can often miss and when they do, they can expose big gaps behind the stunt. But with the Vikings replacing the stunter with a linebacker and having a safety drop in from deep to replace the linebacker, they have the stunt well covered. That makes the stunt even more effective. The defensive tackle beats the right guard across his face and immediately penetrates into the backfield. The back has nowhere to go and the defensive tackle brings him down for a loss of a yard.

That’s just a small glimpse at the variety of fronts and personnel packages involved in this Vikings defense. For the Commanders, the main takeaway is that the team could well be shifting to a 3-4 base defense under Jones, Shifting from a 4-3 to a 3-4 base defense isn’t as big of a deal as it was 15 years ago. Most defenses are very multiple and use principles and fronts from both 4-3 and 3-4 looks. While the Commanders were a 4-3 defense last year, they used 3-4 looks often, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shift for the current personnel, but obviously we’re expecting a big overhaul of the defense anyway, so that shift could change the profiles of players the Commanders target this offseason slightly.

Another big takeaway is the use of a three-safety big nickel package. The Vikings did it a lot under Flores and Jones. It helped that they had the talent to do it. The Commanders felt great about their safety room going into the 2025 season but most players largely underperformed. Adding more safeties could be a higher priority now.

Coverages

The Vikings are known for their aggressive, heavy-blitzing style of defense under Flores and Jones and I would expect Jones to try and replicate that here in Washington. But while they blitz a lot, the Vikings rarely played straight man coverage behind those blitzes. This is something that likely comes from Jones’ background. Flores came up under Bill Belichick and the Patriots, who used a ton of man coverage. Jones spent time under guys like Joseph who use more zone and match coverages.

As a result, the Vikings are still a very aggressive blitzing defense under Flores, but have the zone and match coverage principles imprinted on them from Jones. When they don’t blitz, they primarily play zone coverages, typically out of the quarters branch of coverages.

Here we have an example of a base zone scheme for the Vikings under Flores and Jones. The Bears come out in a two-by-two formation with a receiver and tight end to the right and two receivers to the left. The running back is the fifth eligible receiver and he aligns to the right side of the formation, making the right side the passing strength as there are more eligible receivers to that side.

The reason I point out which side is the passing strength is because of the coverage that the Vikings are playing. They’re playing Cover-6. Cover-6, also known as quarter-quarter-half is a combination coverage. Half of the defense is playing Cover-2 while the other half of the defense is playing Cover-4, or as it’s more commonly known, quarters. In Cover-6, the defense must identify which side of the field is the passing strength, which just means which side has more eligible receivers. As we’ve already established, that is the right side of the formation in this case.

The defense plays quarters coverage over the passing strength, giving them extra protection deep against the side with more eligible receivers on it. That means they play Cover-2 to the other side. You can see this at the snap of the ball. Prior to the snap, the Vikings have two safeties deep in a fairly normal and basic look. At the snap, the safety to the two receiver side widens and gains depth to get to a deep half of the field, as he would in Cover-2. Meanwhile, the other safety holds his position while the cornerback to his side sinks back deep alongside him as part of the quarters coverage to that side.

The coverage works out very nicely for the Vikings here as the underneath coverage matches up well with the route combinations called by the Bears. Quarterback Caleb Williams drops back to pass and scans from left to right, unable to find an open target. He starts to panic and then lobs a checkdown to his running back in the flat, who is quickly forced out of bounds for a minimal gain.

Another thing to note with this play is that the Vikings are in their base 3-4 defense. With base personnel on the field and playing zone coverage, one of the outside linebackers has to be prepared to drop into coverage. You can see here that Andrew Van Ginkel is the outside linebacker responsible for that coverage role. He initially lines up wider, closer to the slot than the left tackle. At the snap, he sinks back into his zone coverage responsibility as part of the Cover-2 coverage to his side of the field.

This is part of the downside of playing a 3-4 base defense and using zone coverage. You need outside linebackers, who are typically edge rushers, to be very capable of dropping back into coverage because they will do it regularly. The Vikings have exactly that type of player in Van Ginkel, who is extremely smart and very capable as both a rusher but also dropping off into coverage. I’m not sure if the Commanders currently have this type of player on the roster. Perhaps Frankie Luvu but he’s not really good enough as an edge rusher and his coverage can be hit and miss. Dorance Armstrong could maybe fill that role but he was their best pass rusher last season and you’d rather him going forward than dropping back into coverage.

The Commanders could potentially overcome that issue with blitzes, sending five rushers frequently, but as we’ll see when we get to the blitz package section, having an outside linebacker that can drop off into coverage reliably is a very valuable part of this defense.

So the Vikings under Flores and Jones like to play zone coverage in their base packages and they primarily live in the quarters coverage family of coverage schemes. We can expect to see plenty of that in Washington under Jones this season. But just because they like to play zone doesn’t mean they won’t still blitz. We typically associate blitzes with man coverage, but the Vikings use a lot of fire zone blitzes, where they rush five and drop six into coverage. This helps the defense disguise where a fifth rusher is coming from, catching the offense by surprise, while still having a relatively safe zone coverage behind it and not exposing the corners to pure man coverage.

Zone blitzes have been around in the NFL for decades, but the usual way they are run consist of three deep zone defenders and three underneath. The Vikings under Flores and Jones like to play more quarters from these zone blitz looks.

On this play against the Eagles, we can see a good example of the Vikings using a quarters-base fire zone. We’ll start first with the rush. The Vikings are in a nickel sub-package with a front four, two linebackers and five defensive backs. They rush the front four but also send the linebacker to the right of the offensive formation, attacking the B gap between the right guard and right tackle. As a side note, get used to seeing plenty of B gap blitzes, the Vikings love to run them.

With five defenders rushing, that leaves six in coverage. Rather than the normal three-deep, three-under fire zone, the Vikings use quarters principles. You can see pre-snap that the Vikings have a quarters shell with their outside cornerbacks and safeties deep. With a linebacker blitzing, they only have two underneath defenders instead of the three you would normally see in quarters coverage, but they have a good plan for that.

A big part of the reason the Vikings love to blitz the B gap is that when offensive lines slide their protection to one side or the other, the B gap is the one left open. The Vikings have their defensive line shifted to the left side of the Eagles line, so they naturally slide their protection to the left side. That leaves the B gap open for the linebacker to attack, which forces the running back to step up in protection, preventing him from releasing into a route.

That is a critical part to the success of this quarters fire zone concept. By forcing the back to protect, the Vikings get even numbers. The Eagles have two receivers on either side of the field. As a result, the Vikings can create two triangle coverages, with three defenders over two on either side of the field. These triangle coverages are very common in quarters-match coverage. The Vikings have a numbers and a leverage advantage on both sets of receivers as a result.

That plays out perfectly for them on this play. You can see the outside receiver breaks inside towards the middle of the field, where Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts thinks he has an open window. But because of the match coverage principles, the outside cornerback passes off the receiver inside to the safety, who quickly drives down on the route and breaks up the pass as it arrives.

From a Commanders perspective, I think we can expect the team to lean much more towards zone and match coverages, particularly quarters coverages. That will be a big shift from where the team started the 2025 season, where they majored in man coverage. When Marshon Lattimore and Trey Amos went down injured, the Commanders began to shift more towards zone and when Dan Quinn took over play-calling duties from Joe Whitt Jr., they leaned heavily into zone. But those were more basic zone coverages. Expect Jones to bring match zone coverages, as well as what we’re all anticipating, blitzes.

Blitz packages

So we’ve now seen some of the basic fronts and coverages we can expect Jones to bring to Washington from his time in Minnesota. But by far the most exciting part of hiring Jones is the potential for an aggressive blitzing defense that looks to force the issue rather than playing reactively. Brian Flores is a master at designing exotic blitz packages to put the opposing quarterback under pressure and generate sacks or force the quarterback into hurried throws that can potentially be intercepted. It’s impossible to expect Jones to replicate everything Flores did to the same level, but I suspect we’ll see him try to keep the same aggressive mentality.

I couldn’t possibly cover all the different types of blitzes Flores put together with the Vikings, but I can at least cover some of the most frequent looks we saw from the Vikings defense last year. Let’s start with the most obvious blitz look, the Cover-0 package. Cover-0 is as aggressive as a blitz can be. It’s pure man coverage, meaning each eligible receiver is assigned a single coverage defender, while every other defender is sent on the blitz. There’s no safety help, it’s as aggressive as it can get, but it does guarantee the defense is rushing one more defender than the offense can block.

As the Commanders found out this season, Flores will call Cover-0 at any time in the game, on any down or distance. It could be first and 10 on the opening play or fourth and goal from the one with 10 seconds remaining. Flores is happy to call Cover-0 at any time in the game and isn’t afraid to do it multiple times in a game.