Down 7-0 at halftime, it felt like the Minnesota Vikings were reeling in their Sunday night showdown against the Indianapolis Colts. After starting the season 5-0, they’d lost two consecutive games and were down in a game where the only scoring was from a strip sack that resulted in a touchdown.
Minnesota’s offense suffered four major disasters: the strip sack, a red-zone interception, and two missed field goals, including a 31-yarder near the end of the half. It’s easy for mistakes like that to compound and spiral out of control. In those instances, the team needs its leaders to set the tone and help turn things around.
Justin Jefferson stepped up for the Vikings and set the team in the right direction. On the first play out of halftime, he ran a nasty route against Colts’ CB Jaylon Jones before breaking a tackle and going out of bounds for a 21-yard gain to start off a drive that ended in a TD. The broken tackle didn’t gain much, maybe three to four extra yards. Still, it showed the fight Minnesota desperately needed to display.
Kevin O’Connell highlighted Jefferson’s leadership when he gave Jefferson a game ball.
“Even when there was a little bit of adversity,” said O’Connell, “this guy had a good look in his eye all night long.”
Any teammate who looked Jefferson in the eyes during that halftime had to know what to do next: Go out and dominate. Jefferson confirmed that intent on the first play of the half, and the rest of the team responded, outscoring the Colts 21-6 in the final two quarters en route to a 21-13 victory.
Jefferson dominated the Colts’ secondary. He caught seven of nine targets for 137 yards and added 22 yards passing on a trick play that converted a third-and-long. He’s now up to 783 yards on the season, leading Ja’Marr Chase by 66 yards. Along with everyone else in the top 10 except for CeeDee Lamb, Chase has played one more game than Jefferson because the Vikings already had their bye.
Jefferson is unquestionably the best receiver in the NFL after the Vikings paid him like it this past offseason. He’s a special player who combines high-end athleticism with technical mastery and relentless effort. Let’s take some time to celebrate that. What better way to do it than by looking at the tape?
elite on-field play
Let’s start with the play I referenced above. The attention to detail that goes into each Jefferson route helps set him apart from other players. Each route is a story told to the DB to deceive him and hopefully get Jefferson open.
On this play, Jefferson is at the bottom, with Jones in off coverage. From the snap, you can see Jefferson lower his shoulders and head, getting into the drive phase of the route. That sells the DB that he is running deep and fast.
He wants to eat up as much ground as possible during this phase of the route. By the time he’s at the 36-yard line, you can see that he’s about a yard and a half ahead of Jordan Addison, who’s very fast in his own right (and lined up about a yard behind Jefferson). That shows Jefferson’s acceleration to be up with the best players in the league because no one would question Addison’s speed or vertical ability.
Once Jefferson has completed the vertical phase of the route, he reaches the 38 and takes two critical steps. The first is to the outside. Below, you can see he lines up just inside the top of the number at the 30, then eventually takes a step in the middle of the 0 at the 40.
The initial step outside widens the CB a little and sets up an inside step. After the wide step, he makes a hard inside step and turns his head towards the inside. That forces the CB, who is playing with outside leverage, to start to move towards the inside — which is exactly what Jefferson wants him to do. Notice how the CB was at about the bottom of the 4 in 40 on Jefferson’s first outside step and then got pulled inside, ending up in the middle of the 0 in the 50 by the time he’s turning around. Jefferson has fully sold him on the inside move, so now it’s time to break outside.
Jefferson’s break is a thing of beauty. For a receiver running a route, limiting the number of steps to break is crucial. Steps take time, and wasted steps lead to CBs catching up. Here, Jefferson can go from sprinting upfield to running toward the sideline in three steps. His first throttle step is with his outside foot at about the 43, and then he takes one with his inside foot at the 44 and a second with his outside foot at the 46. By the time his inside foot hits at the 47, he is already turning around and looking for the ball from Darnold.
That’s where the final part of his route-running skill comes in, and he comes back to the football. His break puts him at about the 49, but good DBs will be able to turn and make a play on the ball at that location. Jefferson knows this and comes back two yards to the 47, ensuring Jones can’t make a play. Then, he finishes with great balance by breaking the tackle and going out of bounds.
We don’t have to go into that level of detail for every Jefferson play, but you see it all over the place. For example, in the play below, Jefferson drew a holding penalty against Jones at the bottom of the screen. He stems his route from halfway between the numbers to the hash, but he runs straight up the hash for a while before breaking inside. The fact that Jefferson ran straight up the hash was the key; Jones felt Jefferson running past him and grabbed him. A sloppier route runner may have angled more inside and not forced Jones to feel he was out of position.
Jefferson’s speed is probably an underrated aspect of his game. He doesn’t have the game-breaking speed Tyreek Hill does, but Jefferson is still an explosive athlete. Look at how he accelerates between the 40 and 30 on the play below to leave CB Samuel Womack in the dust, creating enough separation for Darnold to drop the ball in the bucket.
Jefferson’s body control is the fundamental attribute that differentiates him from mortals at the WR position. His ability to disconnect his lower half from his upper half allows him to break sharply on routes, extend plays after the catch, and stay in bounds like on his ridiculous catch against the Rams below.
Look at how many steps Jefferson can make in bounds while juggling this football. He touches down at the 10, nine, eight, six, five, and then sneaks his right foot in at the four before finally stepping out of bounds. Jefferson had full control at the six but got an extra foot down and extra yardage just because he could. The concentration of taking those steps while catching a football through contact with a defender is astounding.
Jefferson’s attention to detail also manifests in game planning and execution. Jefferson completed a 22-yard pass across the field to Aaron Jones on a third-and-16, and his attention to detail created the space for the conversion. After catching a lateral from Darnold, he took multiple steps forward to sell a screen play, drawing the defenders further in. It works, and pursuit back to Jones after the throw was late. The defense couldn’t stop themselves well enough to tackle Jones because they had to fully sprint back.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Kevin O’Connell, whose excellent play designs help get Jefferson open every week. The defense’s attention is always on Jefferson. In many cases, creative designs are necessary to give Sam Darnold a window to throw to Minnesota’s superstar.
The play below is Cover 3 from the Colts, and they have two defenders in hook zones over the middle of the field. One, a safety, is playing deeper to Jefferson’s side to help cover any in-breakers from Jefferson. The LB to the other side also has a hook zone, and there is limited space between those two players if he gets depth.
Minnesota knows this, so the play design has T.J. Hockenson run a hook right at the LB. That prevents him from falling deeper down the field and opens up a hole in between the two zones for Darnold to target Jefferson. Darnold sees the play unfold well and shows nice anticipation to deliver an accurate ball to Jefferson for a big gain.
Plays and designs like that are all over the tape for the Vikings and show O’Connell’s high-level ability as a playcaller.
Astronomic production
Putting up great tape is awesome. Putting up great numbers is awesome. Doing both is something only a handful of receivers can accomplish in a year, and Jefferson has done it consistently, year after year, for all 4.5 seasons he’s been in the NFL.
This year, he’s almost taken it to another level. He’s put up the most volume of any receiver in the league, but he’s also been absurdly efficient. Per PFF, Jefferson is averaging 3.09 yards per route run through eight games in 2024. That’s fourth in the NFL and behind only Nico Collins, A.J. Brown, and Rashee Rice, all of whom have missed multiple games with injury this year. Next Gen Stats has him at 3.3 yards/route, which is also fourth behind the same list of players.
In yards per game, Jefferson ranks second, behind Collins. Jefferson is averaging 97.9 yards/game this season. However, that’s below his career average of 98.3 yards/game. That’s an NFL record. That’s right, Justin Jefferson has the NFL record for yards/game in his career.
The reason Jefferson is behind Collins in yards/game and below his career average is simple. The Vikings aren’t passing as much as they did in previous years. The Texans threw the ball 190 times in the five games Collins played. Minnesota has only attempted 225 passes in three more games this season. Last year, the Vikings attempted 631 passes, or 37 per game. This year, they’re averaging 28 attempts per game. Justin Jefferson is the leading receiver in the NFL on a team that doesn’t throw the ball that much.
That has led to some truly absurd efficiency stats for Jefferson. He leads the NFL in target share, the number of targets divided by the number of team passing attempts. Darnold has targeted him on 30.7% of Minnesota’s attempts.
Where the numbers truly start to get unbelievable is how efficient Jefferson has been on those targets. His 11.3 yards/target is 11th in the NFL, but no one on that list is close to Jefferson’s volume of 69 targets. If you look at Jefferson’s yardage share, the percentage of team passing yards his receiving yards account for is a whopping 40.2%. No one else is even close. George Pickens is in second place at 32.9%.
I also subtracted yardage share from target share to examine how efficient players were. The result is similar to the yards per target numbers but penalizes players a bit more for low target shares. That makes sense because the more a receiver is targeted, the more likely the opponent will try to take away that player, making it harder for him to gain yardage.
As you can see from the above, the difference between Jefferson’s yardage share and his target share is 9.5 percentage points, which is fifth in the NFL. The leaders are Jayden Reed, Collins, Alec Pierce, and Brian Thomas. None of those players have a target share over Thomas’ 18.7%. Jefferson has the highest target share in the NFL and is out-producing that target share by more than almost anyone.
Another way to look at Jefferson’s importance to the Vikings is by examining his yards/team target. It’s a more rudimentary number than yards/route run because it doesn’t discount plays the player missed. Still, it probably better describes how important someone has been to a team’s passing offense over the season. Jefferson’s yards/team target is a whopping 3.48, and no one else is even close. The Baltimore Ravens’ Zay Flowers is second at 2.55, and only 12 other players are over two yards in this metric. No other player in the league is remotely as productive as Jefferson.
Two of the players I mentioned above, Nico Collins and A.J. Brown, are close if you remove the games where they were injured. Brown has a 29.1% target share and a 39.6% yardage share in the games he’s played and is at an incredible 3.79 yards/team target. Collins had a 23.7% target share in his five games, with a 38.4% yardage share and 2.98 yards/team target. Cooper Kupp would also lead the NFL in target share, at 31.8% in games he’s played, but has been much less efficient.
All that is to say that only two players can even come close to Jefferson’s level of efficiency at his volume, and both of them have missed time due to injury. When looking at the full season, Jefferson stands alone.
Conclusion
After signing a big contract with the team this offseason, Justin Jefferson has continued to be a leader for the team on and off the field. His demeanor and play helped spring a comeback in Minnesota’s critical victory over the Colts. He’s the best receiver in the NFL, and it’s awesome that we get to watch him suit up for the Vikings every week.
