Immediately after Brian Flores signed his contract, solidifying his return to Minnesota, it became immediately apparent that the Vikings had a glaring hole at safety that they had to address. While veteran Harrison Smith continues to mull over whether to retire, the Vikings’ safety situation is dire even with him on the roster.
The Vikings need an infusion of youth and talent to that position if they’re going to have any hope of continuing to run the versatile Brian Flores shenanigans that have gotten them this far. Flores has made his living by manipulating the most versatile defenders at his disposal, often from the safety position.
He’s done so with a variety of body types and skill sets. Harrison Smith’s instincts and experience made him an invaluable defender close to the line of scrimmage. Cam Bynum’s range and ball skills made him an invaluable piece in the deep third. Josh Metellus has been the perfect Swiss Army knife, and his hybrid safety/linebacker/nickel defender skillset has allowed him to move all over the defensive formation, depending on the needs of the play.
However, this past season was not quite as productive from the safety room. Theo Jackson was a disappointment. We still haven’t seen any progress from Jay Ward. Bynum’s departure was a real sore spot, especially as Smith’s athleticism continued to decline beyond a point that could be compensated for with instincts and experience. Smith’s status remains in limbo, and the Vikings haven’t made any meaningful free-agent additions. So, that makes the likelihood of interim GM Rob Brzezinski selecting a safety with his first pick the odds-on favorite.
To that end, there have been two names duking it out for the Vikings’ pick in the Mock Draft community that seem to be separating themselves from the others: Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman and Toledo safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren. If we zero in on these two prospects, which is a better fit for the Brian Flores defense at large? And which fills the necessary archetype now alongside the rest of the secondary?
In a draft that’s got a reputation of being a bit of a down year, talent-wise, it’s not a bad time to need an athletic, rangy safety.
Starting with the current defending favorite, there’s a lot to like about Dillon Thieneman at first blush. He ran the fifth-fastest 40 time in Indianapolis, he’s played at the highest levels of college football, and, according to draft analyst Todd McShay, he killed the interview process in Indy. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein described Thieneman as an “extension of his defensive coordinator, aligning and adjusting the secondary to motion and pre-snap shifts.”
I imagine that would be tantalizing to a coach like Flores, who lives and breathes motion and pre-snap shifts.
Here's @McShay13 talking about Dillon Thieneman's Combine ancension. Interesting note about his acumen on the whiteboard, something that could be pretty tantalizing for a guy like Brian Flores! pic.twitter.com/RRsI6FHVQh
— Nelson Thielen (@NelsonThielen) March 26, 2026
Dillon Thieneman is an athletic, rangy player who’s a bit undersized at 6’0″, 200 lbs. However, some scouts think he’s got more potential to add size to his frame. For all his straight-line speed, that lack of size does show up pretty often on his tape. He’s not a thumper at the line of scrimmage like some other safeties in this class.
Thieneman has great pursuit and is at his best flying down from depth to make the tackle. Still, that full-speed sprinting down the alley also leads to some of his worst misses as a tackler. He’s also a bit of a liability in man coverage, which may not be a deal breaker as a safety in the Flores defense, but is an important consideration. He’s faster than quick — a hilarious juxtaposition to the cliché — and it leads to some of his short-area struggles in coverage.
Before his time at Oregon, where he was utilized more as a run defender, he was tasked with more coverage responsibilities at Purdue in his freshman and sophomore seasons. He had excellent coverage grades playing the deep middle as a freshman. However, he later declined amid a total defensive collapse at Purdue as a sophomore when they tried to use him in coverage alignments that didn’t suit his skill set.
However, in his junior season at Oregon, he flashed his greatest potential as a player who can align deep and fly downfield to make tackles from the back end.
I think Dillon Thieneman's superpower is his ability to be lined up deep and somehow making the play at the line of scrimmage moments later. pic.twitter.com/U2WzJQkkkA
— Nelson Thielen (@NelsonThielen) March 26, 2026
In that vein, I can see his fit with the Flores defense. I think Flores will like his versatility and acumen for the game. I like players like Thieneman, who are constantly involved in the play, and his pursuit and motor make him flash across your screen. Flores may see a versatile player who could grow into the type of do-it-all defender he covets.
That said, Thieneman will need to seriously work on his tackling and angles. The speed at which you get to the ball carrier doesn’t matter as much if you’re either missing or having to grind to a complete halt to make the tackle flatfooted. That technique could very likely be teachable, and it’s something that could be compensated for if he can add more weight to his frame, but it isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. And for a defense that struggled with missed tackles in 2025, even amidst their success, putting a player like Thieneman in a key role could exacerbate that problem.
Notably, for all the love he’s gotten from the national media, prominent Vikings and draft analyst Tyler Forness hates the fit at pick No. 19.
It's interesting to see a contrasting opinion on Dillon Thieneman, who's been a bit of a media darling since the combine, by @TheRealForno here. Can appreciate that Forno has always been a guy to stick to his grade rather than getting swept up by consensus. pic.twitter.com/GmZLoctD9B
— Nelson Thielen (@NelsonThielen) March 26, 2026
If Thieneman isn’t your type because you want more size or physicality, man, are you going to love Emmanuel McNeil-Warren.
McNeil-Warren is violent. So many of this guy’s highlights end with me genuinely concerned for the poor G6 ballcarrier that he just obliterated.
McNeil-Warren has a thin frame for his 6’3” build at only 200 lbs. (Ironically, the same weight as Thieneman despite being three inches taller.) Still, that doesn’t stop him one iota from a physicality standpoint. He has an urgency and tenacity in attacking ball carriers that are really tantalizing. I loved McShay’s description of McNeil-Warren in the following clip, comparing his pursuit and sudden explosion as a tackler to that of a prowling jungle cat.
I loved McShay's description of Toledo Safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren. In a world where player comps often fall flat, let's comp more players to prowling jungle cats like @McShay13 does here 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/ILm1FODEiy
— Nelson Thielen (@NelsonThielen) March 26, 2026
Emmanuel McNeil-Warren also has a knack for attacking the football. He’s aggressive at the catch point, and he’s got a mean “peanut punch” for forcing fumbles when he attacks a ball carrier. So often during his time at Toledo, the defense would seemingly give up a big play only for McNeil-Warren to fly in and punch the ball out or light up the receiver so badly they couldn’t complete the catch. And this isn’t me extrapolating a skill set based on one or two flukey plays; McNeil-Warren peanut-punched his way to nine career forced fumbles at Toledo.
In coverage, he shows solid fluidity for a guy his size, but don’t expect a coverage savant. McNeil-Warren isn’t capable of sliding seamlessly into the role Cam Bynum played for Flores in previous seasons. He’s at his best when he can attack the football as a robber near the line of scrimmage. McNeil-Warren is far from a coverage liability, but NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein notes some inefficient footwork and athletic limitations keeping up with elite vertical speed.
McNeil-Warren is also a bit of a lunger sometimes as a tackler, and he can be a bit of a gambler when he’s flying in to attack the football. If Thieneman was frustrating for flying to the football and grinding to a halt to tackle flatfooted, McNeil-Warren is frustrating because he’ll just straight-up miss occasionally. But the way he can be that enforcer over the middle of the field, decimator in the screen game, and prowling jungle cat in the open field would be very fun if he were to end up in purple.
McNeil-Warren isn't a perfectly clean prospect, and there's definitely some things the defensive coaching staff would need to clean up with his game. But are you telling me Flores isn't salviating watching him attack the footabll like this? pic.twitter.com/KWqmRwpmSf
— Nelson Thielen (@NelsonThielen) March 26, 2026
Given what both of these guys bring to the table, there’s an interesting conversation to be had about which is a better fit in the Flores defense. In a vacuum, I think Flores would like both players for different reasons, but it’s also about how they fit with the players currently on the roster. Do either of these players have the coverage skills to allow Metellus to continue his role closer to the line of scrimmage?
I think Thieneman does. Even if he’s not an elite coverage player, he’s got the speed and savvy to play the more traditional free safety role, which then pairs well with his ability to fly down the alley to the football in the running game. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if Flores knocks him for his limited physicality — and if he even truly sees that “Cam Bynum” role as an essential one in his scheme.
If, instead, he’d like two versatile “bash brothers” at safety, both able to attack with physicality and cycle through plays in the middle of the field, then McNeil-Warren could be an interesting pairing with Metellus. It’s worth noting that Harrison Smith certainly wasn’t an elite coverage player in 2025. However, the ability to swap Smith and Metellus’ responsibilities on the fly is what allowed Flores to work his magic. McNeil-Warren could be a good fit to fulfill that variation of Flores’ secondary.
One dark-horse option: I also really like A.J. Haulcy. The LSU safety is limited athletically when it comes to straight-line speed, but he’s a technician in coverage who makes the most of that athleticism. His eyes and route recognition are awesome, and that culminated in 12 PBU’s and eight interceptions over two years as a starter at LSU. He doesn’t have the juice coming from depth that the other two we’ve discussed, but, as Lance Zierlein so eloquently put it in his NFL.com write-up, he “hits like a bag of concrete” when he’s playing as an enforcer over the middle.
In all likelihood, Haulcy lacks the athleticism to be a first-round player. But if the Vikings trade back on draft night, or address another position in Round 1, he’d be a priority Day 2 target.
AJ Haulcy is a playmaker who can lay some BIG HITS
Top 50 player on my 2026 NFL Draft Big Board https://t.co/LjxtqHyRwi pic.twitter.com/s92SqaSkak
— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) December 19, 2025
It may feel like I paid a lot of attention to a traditionally “non-premium position.” Still, we’ve seen firsthand that the safety position has been Brian Flores’ secret sauce during his time in Minnesota. And there would be no better way to celebrate Harrison Smith’s legacy than to find the next great Vikings safety this April.