At one point in the offseason, Alabama DT Christian Barmore was a popular player tabbed for the Vikings in mock drafts. Barmore plays on the interior of the defensive line, but he can still get pressure and rush the passer.
However, Barmore isn’t nearly as popular of a mock draft selection for Minnesota to make nowadays. That’s because the Vikings went out and signed DT Dalvin Tomlinson in free agency.
Some were surprised by the move for Minnesota to get Tomlinson, on account of DT Michael Pierce — who the team signed in 2020 — being similar stylistically.
Vikings co-defensive coordinator and assistant head coach Andre Patterson recently shed some light on how the Vikings approach the defensive tackle position when he spoke with the Vikings.com’s Gabe Henderson and Chris Corso (H/T Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated):
“It’s so funny how other people tell us what we need and they don’t know what we do, right? All the time I hear ‘oh, they need a penetrating three-technique.’ Well, we had the No. 1 defense in the league and we didn’t have a penetrating [DT],” Patterson said. “We don’t ask our three-technique to do that. So why would we go out and get something we don’t use? I don’t get that. Obviously, you aren’t watching us play, that’s the way I look at it.”
That all makes sense. If Minnesota wants to utilize the interior defensive line like that, it has certainly worked in the past. That said, the team has used players like Sheldon Richardson and Sharrif Floyd, both of whom could get pressure from the interior. But Shamar Stephen and Tomlinson certainly fit the bill for what Patterson is talking about.
But Patterson and the rest of the Vikings seem to have a plan and that’s having the defensive tackles clog up holes and take up blockers for the linebackers to run free.