Vikings big question: What's the short- and long-term outlook for pass rushers?

The Vikings pass rush had perhaps its most productive day of the year during Sunday's victory in Chicago. The group sacked Justin Fields four times, before Josh Metellus' strip sack of Bears backup quarterback Tyson Bagent produced Jordan Hicks' game-winning fumble return touchdown, and pressured the two passers on 50% of their dropbacks.

By the time of Metellus' sack, Marcus Davenport had already limped off the field with a left ankle injury that required him to be carted to the locker room. Coach Kevin O'Connell said Monday the injury is "definitely something we are going to have to really, really take a look at from a medical standpoint." On Monday evening, a source with knowledge of the situation said Davenport could miss four to six weeks and land on injured reserve with a high ankle sprain.

The injury is the latest for Davenport, whose durability was perhaps the biggest concern when the Vikings signed the former first-round pick to a one-year, $13 million deal in March. He will be on the open market after this season with Danielle Hunter, who currently leads the league with eight sacks, and D.J. Wonnum (who ranks second on the team with 14 pressures).

Figuring out the quarterback situation is certainly the Vikings' biggest decision. Given Davenport's health, Hunter's free-agent status and the lack of proven players on the roster, there's a case to be made that developing pass rushers might be their second-largest concern. Filling that need through the draft could be especially tricky if the Vikings have to part with several picks to move up and take a quarterback in the spring.

Through six games, though, defensive coordinator Brian Flores has shown he can manufacture pressure even without vaunted edge rushers. Metellus' strip sack provides an example worth watching.

On the play, the Vikings lined up in a 3-3-5 nickel package, with Hunter lined up outside tight end Cole Kmet while Wonnum and Metellus lined up to the right of the Vikings' three defensive linemen. Hicks, the third linebacker on the play, is lined up 5 yards off the line of scrimmage over right tackle Darnell Wright.

The Vikings bring a six-man pressure after the snap, with Hicks holding his spot on the second level of the defense. The Bears counter with a six-man protection and have tight end Robert Tonyan chipping Hunter before releasing on a route. But because Wonnum and Metellus are on their outside shoulders, Bears guard Larry Borom and tackle Teven Jenkins deal with them, leaving running back Darrynton Evans to handle Harrison Phillips, who's lined up as a defensive end on the play. Evans runs outside of Phillips' path, and Phillips finds a free lane to Bagent before Evans can pivot back in an attempt to block him. Phillips flushes Bagent toward Metellus, whose strip sack sets up Hicks' fumble return TD.

Before the Bears game, the Vikings led the league with a 57.9% blitz rate; according to my tracking, they blitzed Fields on nine of his 17 dropbacks Sunday and blitzed Bagent on 14 of his 15, for a total of 71.8% for the day. This came a week after the Vikings blitzed Patrick Mahomes 48.7% of the time, sending extra pressure at more than triple the rate he'd faced in his first four games this season.

At least for this year, Flores seems unafraid to send pressure at league-high rates, trusting his defense can limit big plays. The results show some progress in both areas; the Vikings are ninth in the league in sacks, and a year after they allowed the second-most pass plays of 20 yards or more, they've given up only 18 such plays through six games, which is tied for the 12th-most in the league. Statistically, the defense has gone from one of the league's worst to somewhere in the middle. It's not great, but it has shown some progress with a limited set of improvements on the personnel side. And if the Vikings have been able to blitz and still limit big plays with a young secondary, it stands to reason Flores would get more comfortable trusting his corners in single coverage as they get more experienced.

The Vikings still rank only 15th in pressure percentage, and they'll certainly be looking for help in that area after the season, though Flores' "what's in the cupboard" approach has given them a way to survive thus far. It's worth watching how they handle the rest of the season, especially as offenses try to find new ways to attack them in the stretch without Davenport, and how they approach an offseason during which three of their top four edge rushers will be free agents.