Prior to a Week 9 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts, Justin Jefferson shared that Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell had dialed down the complexity of the team's offensive scheme a bit during their mini-bye week following their loss to the Los Angeles Rams in Week 8.
Some of these changes were implemented to help simplify the offense for first-year Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold and help the team commit fewer self-inflicted wounds on the offensive side of the ball, like pre-snap penalties.
According to SharpFootballAnalysis.com's Pamela Maldonado, the Vikings ran pre-snap motion on 67 percent of their plays through the first eight weeks of the 2024 season. In the three games between Week 9 and Week 11, that pre-snap motion frequency dropped to 54 percent.
In addition, data from PFF shows Jefferson lined up in the slot for 25.2 percent of his snaps during the first eight weeks of the year. However, in the four games since the adjustments were made before Minnesota's Week 9 matchup, the star receiver's slot usage fell to 15 percent.
Unsurprisingly, these changes have had a negative impact on Jefferson's performance during the Vikings' last few games.
From Week 1 through Week 8, Minnesota's All-Pro receiver caught a total of five touchdowns while averaging 5.9 receptions and 92.3 receiving yards per contest. Since Week 9, Jefferson hasn't found the end zone once, and he's averaged five catches and 73.3 yards per matchup.
Are opposing defenses placing a ton of attention on the Vikings' star receiver each week? Yes, but that isn't really anything new. What's new is Minnesota hasn't really been scheming Jefferson open as much during the last few weeks and they've been relying more on him to just get open on his own.
Jefferson is an extremely talented wide receiver, but there's only so much he can do on his own when attempting to get open while constantly facing double and triple coverages from opposing defenses.
The difficult part is figuring out how to go back to using some of the previous methods to get him open without making the offense too complex again because the recent changes have certainly had a positive impact on the overall performance of the Vikings' offense.
But Jefferson is an offensive weapon that should be used for more than just drawing attention away from other Minnesota pass-catchers. So, O'Connell needs to figure out how to reach some sort of happy medium between the dialed-down version of the Vikings offense and the version of the offense that the team was running during the first half of the season.
It's easier said than done, but if he can do it, then opposing teams are likely going to have even more trouble stopping Minnesota's offense than they have all season long.
