Josh Metellus and the super power of Football IQ
EAGAN — When you stand on the sidelines at Minnesota Vikings training camp, there are some players who catch your eye right away. Tight end Josh Oliver looks like he could pull a jetliner with his teeth. Justin Jefferson has Michael Jordan’s vertical. Kene Nwangwu runs so hard you can hear his feet smashing into the ground like a galloping horse.
Safety Josh Metellus, however, is not one of those guys. He’s a shade under 6 feet tall, average weight for his position and he ran a middling 4.55 40-yard dash NFL Combine a few years ago. He even jokes that if he wasn’t wearing a number, nobody would know which player he was without asking.
While you might not be intimidated by him off the bus, you can figure out pretty quickly during practice that Metellus is an important figure in new defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s defense. First, because you will hear him. The fourth-year safety is one of the loudest players out there, constantly communicating his way through Flores’s complex scheme both when he’s playing a normal safety position with the second team and hybrid “big nickel” role in other sub packages.
When he isn’t playing, you can also hear his voice piercing through the football noises and music from the new TCO Performance Center speaker system. On Monday, for example, Metellus yelled out directions from the sideline to the third unit during a red zone drill, urging them to adjust to the offense’s pre-snap motion. When Lewis Cine intercepted a pass last Saturday, Metellus was among the first hollering in celebration.
After you have identified him by sound, you can easily spot No. 44 getting involved in just about everything. He’s buzzing around in the box as a third safety with Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum during final-drive drills, he’s getting in pass lanes against and he’s working on all the special teams phases.
Simply put: Metellus has become a key part of the Vikings’ operation.
When he arrived at training camp one year ago, it wasn’t clear if he would even have a spot with a new regime taking over. The team drafted Cine in the first round and Bynum in the fourth the year before and he only had 70 snaps of NFL experience on defense. The 2020 fifth-rounder spent the first two seasons of his career establishing himself on special teams, appearing on kick returns, kick coverage, punt return and punt coverage.
By the end of last year’s camp, Metellus earned the backup job to Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum and ahead of the first-rounder Cine and when opportunity came knocking against Detroit in Week 3 he was ready. Metellus played 78 snaps, registered a 82.7 PFF grade and put a bow in the game with an interception in the waning moments.
All said and done in 2022, Metellus was on the field for 261 defensive snaps, which took place in a bunch of different positions. He played 150 as a free safety, 63 in the box and even 33 as a slot corner.
“He’s just a guy that no mater where you put him, he’s going to do everything he can to be the best at that,” All-Pro safety Harrison Smith said. “Whether it’s right guard on punt, or safety, or whatever.”
What’s been behind his emergence? Metellus has something that most do not. He has a football hack. A super power. A part of his game that is rare and sets him apart: His Football IQ.
“He could sit up there and run a meeting as a coach right now,” Smith said. “I learn a lot from him. He knows more, a lot of times, than I do – so I’m trying to learn stuff from him, too.”
The term “Football IQ” can mean a number of things. It captures a player’s understanding of offenses and defenses, assignments, schemes etc. and how well they apply those things on the field. Smith noted the connection between his understanding of the game and being able to maximize his ability, saying he felt “unathletic” when he didn’t know where he was supposed to be going. It’s amazing how much of football is being able to start in the right spot and run toward the right spot.
“This game is a lot about being in the right position,” Metellus said. “As a [defensive back] you never want to be in a bad spot so I think my football IQ helps being in the right spot.... As defensive backs we have to react and [Football IQ] helps me get in the right spot so I don’t have to make up any ground, I don’t have to make up an extra step, I just have to make the steps that are required to make the play instead of having to be five yards this way.”
Experienced football coaches know Football IQ when they see it. Flores said he can spot players with high intelligence right away. He said that the smartest defenders can see the 30,000-foot view of things rather than having tunnel vision and focusing solely on their own job.
“I think some guys just learn conceptually,” Flores said. “This is this coverage, this is that coverage, this is that front, that’s that stunt or that blitz. If that guy goes in, I have to go out. Things conceptually that you can see versus someone who’s memorizing it.”
There’s something about high IQ players that goes beyond where to line up or how the X’s and O’s move in conjunction. When players have it, there seems to be a sixth sense that is hard to explain. From watching, you would think they were born with it. How did that guy know the play was going there? He just knew.
“It’s a game of instinct but instinct comes from a lot of preparation and understanding how they’re going to attack,” veteran linebacker Jordan Hicks said. “Being able to make fast decisions based off film study that you’ve seen and translating it on the field quickly.”
“Film study has a lot to do with it,” Metellus echoed. “Tendencies, you start to learn what teams like to do, how certain players play and what they tip off. It just helps you play fast and anticipate. That’s a big thing on defense because you’re already a step behind because the offense knows where they are going and you don’t. It helps you anticipate. There’s a lot of work that goes into that.”
Just saying “film study” does not begin to encapsulate the actual number of hours that it takes to become fluent in the scheme and play instinctually. Metellus says that he takes the approach of putting in more time than the veterans because they have more actual game reps. He tells new players that they must fall in love with the process of learning, studying, applying every bit as they love hitting and tackling. He points out that the team calls meeting rooms “the classroom” for a reason.
“Having the right study habits, that translates,” Metellus said. “You can study for five hours and still fail the test but if you study for one hour and study the right things you will ace the test.”
It isn’t hard to figure out why Metellus is emerging under Flores. While it looks like a bunch of bees flying around on the practice field of TCO Performance Center, there is a lot of method in the madness and the more understanding players have of the moving parts the more successful they can be.
“Flo gives us the freedom to run it the way we see fit as long as the pieces fit together,” Hicks said. “There’s a lot of checks, there’s a lot of adjustments, there’s a lot of things within the call that we can handle on our own. That’s part of what makes this defense so aggressive and different and difficult to scheme [against] because we may be running the same thing but it may look different in four different ways. That’s all based on what we’re feeling out there, what our film study is.”
“The more comfortable you are with the scheme the more you know what everybody else is doing and the easier it makes your job and easier it is to fix when something goes wrong,” Metellus said.
When it comes to his ascending safety, Flores makes something clear: Football IQ only matters if you have the actual talent and toughness to be on the field. The Vikings’ defensive coordinator joked that he has pretty high IQ but wasn’t gifted enough on the field to play at this level.
“Football IQ helps you if you want to make checks or adjustments or being able to put yourself in the most advantageous position based on what they give you,” Flores said. “We also need guys who can run, who can hit, who can tackle, who can get off blocks. I put more of a premium on those things.”
Over three years, Metellus has been honing that part on special teams.
“There are a lot of dogs on special teams, lotta guys who are fighting to make the team on special teams,” he said. “They are on that borderline, trying a lot harder than the guy making $20 million who knows he’s going to be on the team. Playing defense you run and hit and that’s what special teams is about and that’s the type of player I am. I like to run and hit and that translates well.”
It has translated well so far. Hicks was insistent that Metellus is in for a big year and that’s showing in practice. He is wreaking havoc as a blitzer in practice, frustrating the offense as they try to adapt to everything Flores is throwing their way. The role seems like a good fit for a player who has been touted for his versatility since college. But he doesn’t care how he’s used. He’ll learn it, study it, teach it and play it aggressively and instinctively.
“I just love playing football,” Metellus said. “I joke all the time that I don’t have a set position, I’m just a football player. I want to make plays.”
