In Improving the NFL's Best Defense, Vikings Now Hold the Keys to the NFC Crown

It happened so fast. We blinked and the Minnesota Vikings defense became a football superpower.

In a rapidly changing NFL that favors offenses, the Vikings have adapted equally quickly, like a cell facing a stiff external stimulus.

Offense is everywhere you look around the NFC. Eight of the 10 favorites for MVP come from the conference. And new targeting rules ostensibly designed to protect all players likely will be applied more to defenses.

While Minnesota tried to catch some part of that wave by signing quarterback Kirk Cousins, it also responded by signing a player named George Iloka.

Iloka isn't a big name, but if you like watching safety play (and who doesn't—amiright?) then you know who he is. Quite simply, he's difficult to play against. Combining smarts and power, Iloka had 79 tackles, five passes defended and one interception last season. He is the definitive strong safety.

On Sunday, the Bengals cut him over salary issues. This week, the Vikings signed him and made one of the league's best defenses even better. Iloka joins a defense overflowing with Pro Bowlers, from safety Harrison Smith to cornerback Xavier Rhodes to defensive linemen Everson Griffen and Linval Joseph. Signing Iloka is like adding Denzel Washington to a movie cast that already featured Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.

How's that for a counter move to the rest of the NFL?

Wild as it may sound, there is a chance the Vikings might not even start Iloka. Minnesota already has the deepest secondary in the sport. The backups to Trae Waynes and Rhodes—first-round pick Mike Hughes and veterans Terence Newman and Mackensie Alexander—could start on a number of teams. Yet they sit on a deep Vikings bench.

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But with a $790,000 base salary and $90,000 signing bonus, Iloka is a luxury Minnesota can easily afford, and a talent that could make an already great defense potentially historic.

Some people will tell you the Jacksonville Jaguars have the league's best defense and others will say it's the Vikings, but one AFC front-office executive I trust believes Minnesota's defense is the deepest and most well-rounded.

"They can upset the balance of power not just in the NFC but across the entire NFL," the exec said. "And it's because of that defense."

One of the fascinating things about watching professional sports, especially the NFL, is that on-field revolutions and evolutions happen not in years, but in months. An offseason can change the NFL's balance of power with as few as one or two big moves.

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Iloka may not carry as profound an impact as Reggie White once did in heading to the Packers, but he does represent a Vikings mentality of not standing by as offenses mushroom in power and influence. They are fighting back in a way few teams are right now—with a team built to stop opponents, not outrace them on the scoreboard. In doing so, the Vikings may be the biggest threat in a conference full of great offenses, including Green Bay, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Carolina, Seattle and New Orleans.

And we've all been here to see it, so long as you didn't blink twice.  

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.