Vikings Incorporate Versatility at Defensive Tackle Spots

[Viktor]

"The style of play changes at each position," Patterson said. "Last year, [Johnson] could go into 3-technique and be productive, then he could go into nose and change his stance and be productive at that, too.


"His confidence level went through the roof," Patterson added. "He finally understood he was a good football player within our scheme. Now, I'm hoping that confidence level takes over again this year, and you see his game rise to a whole another level because of that."


Patterson said Iowa's approach at the defensive tackle spots was assigning left and right defensive tackles that adjusted assignments based on the look by the offense.


"What I mean by that is if he was the right defensive tackle and the tight end came out to the right, he was a 3-technique," Patterson said. "If the tight end came out to the left, he was a nose. So, it wasn't like he had never had the experience of playing nose before."


The stance by Hawkeyes players didn't change, but it does with the Vikings, depending on whether a player is at nose or 3.


"The way we played it at Iowa, being a 3-technique, we still had our hand down next to the ball, tilted forward and getting off the ball a little bit. It was the same thing at nose tackle, too. I played that for four or five years," Johnson said. "Then coming here to Minnesota, our nose tackles are required to have a balanced stance and not really coming off the ball. It takes some adjustments, it takes a while to really adjust to that, but once you get in the habit of doing it every single day, it's like second nature now."


Said Patterson: "Most people … stay in the same stance and stay with the same technique. But for us, it's different, so when the young guys come in here, that's the thing where it takes time for them to figure out."


Nose tackles often gobble up double teams by an opponent's guard and center, leaving a 1-on-1 with a guard for the 3-technique. There are other differences, as well.