Is Justin Jefferson as valuable as a quarterback?
As an MVP finalist and AP Offensive Player of the Year, Justin Jefferson made a clear case as the most dominant non-quarterback in the NFL this season. His analytically-based GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said at the NFL Combine that Jefferson’s value is so high to the organization that he is the rare non-QB who will be looped into the club’s future decision making. Could a receiver really be as valuable as a quarterback?
Without any background knowledge of advanced stats, you could probably assume Jefferson is at least more valuable to his team than one of the lower tier quarterbacks but let’s look into how he really stacks up by the numbers…
Jefferson’s case as the NFL’s best
The Vikings have absolutely owned the receiver position over the last three decades. With Cris Carter, Randy Moss, a dash of Percy Harvin, Stefon Diggs, and now Justin Jefferson, it has pretty much been smooth sailing for them since 10 years before Jefferson was even born. For reference, the year before Cris Carter took off as a future Hall of Famer in purple was 1990. Kirk Cousins was 2 years old, Seinfeld had just premiered, and a gallon of gas cost you a whole $1.15. Since then there’s been very few gaps in outstanding receiver play in Minnesota. Jefferson has been arguably the most unstoppable wide receiver in the three combined seasons since he entered the league in 2020, racking up nearly 400 yards more in that time span than the next best pass catcher.
If we look closer, we can get an even better view of how he abuses opposing defenses. FiveThirtyEight does some amazing analytical receiver ratings, similar to those of PFF, that demonstrate the excellence of Jefferson. Based on NFLNextGEN tracking stats, FiveThirtyEight ranks receivers on how often they get open, rate on catchable passes and their yards after catch. This year Jefferson was top 10 in getting open and catching the ball and only scored behind Philadelphia’s AJ Brown in the overall grade of the three categories. He’s done that from the jump. His 2020 season was the second highest rated performance (89 overall rating) out of all wide receivers across the three seasons, only behind one other receiver – oh, a former Viking – Stefon Diggs.
If we look at Jefferson’s grades from PFF, he’s been simply consistent, yet dominant at the same time. He’s had a receiving grade of over 90 for each of his first three seasons – 90.5 in 2020, 90.1 in 2021, and 90.2 in 2022. This past season, his grade of 90.2 was third out of all receivers, only behind Tyreek Hill and Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Aside from player grades, let’s look into a chunk of advanced stats that go into the making of those.
In terms of making the catch, Jefferson is among the best, grabbing around 70% of passes directed his way. However, that includes the uncatchable targets, so when we remove those, Jefferson caught an impressive 92.3% of passes directed his way in 2022. Breaking this down even further to contested targets, Jefferson has gone up and caught the ball over the defender in over 50% of his targets in two out of his three seasons. In terms of creating big plays, Jefferson is also no stranger to that, posting the second most explosive plays in 2022 behind Tyreek Hill.
The above stats do a great job of breaking down each part of Jefferson’s game, but Expected Points Added is a great way to quantify his overall contributions to the Vikings and how that stacks up against the rest of the league’s receivers.
In all of Jefferson’s targets, he has accumulated some of the highest EPA among all wide receivers, and in 2022, his EPA of 74.32 only trailed Jaylen Waddle and Stefon Diggs. Combining all three seasons, Jefferson’s total EPA trails only that of AJ Brown. If we take incompletions out of the equation, Jefferson’s EPA per reception of over 1.15 has also been just as dominant as the other top receivers in the NFL.
In Jefferson’s rookie season, his total EPA of 65.03 was almost half that of all the other receivers on the Vikings, who combined for a total of 110.13 EPA. However, Jefferson quickly accounted for over 50% of the Vikings receiving EPA in 2021, as his EPA of 80.25 was much higher than the other receivers’ combined EPA of 61.46. He even extended this in 2022, as his 74.32 EPA was about 25 points above all the other receivers combined (49.96). You’re reading that correctly: Jefferson was far more valuable than all the other Vikings receivers combined in each of the last two years.
Is he really as valuable as a quarterback?
We’ve established Jefferson’s tremendous play but has he been as valuable and important as a quarterback? It’s hard to compare any position to quarterback, but we’ll try to evaluate this with two stats – PFF Wins Above Replacement and Expected Points Added.
A player’s WAR value shows how valuable to a team that player has been (in terms of wins) compared to a replacement-level player (imagine the Albert Wilson or Jordan Taylor types). In 2022 Jefferson was worth 0.71 wins for the Vikings compared to replacement receivers.
This may not seem like a lot, but this WAR value tied for the highest of all receivers in 2022 with Tyreek Hill. Quarterbacks, on the other hand, have much higher WAR values. Derek Carr had a down year yet still produced a WAR value of 1.24 in 2022, which is 0.53 above Jefferson. However, Carr’s WAR value was only the 23rd highest out of all quarterbacks. A major reason is that replacement level QBs produce way below the starters, whereas replacement receivers can be serviceable.
The QB with the closest WAR value to Jefferson was Marcus Mariota, who was worth 0.73 wins above replacement in 2022 (30th of all QBs). So, according to PFF WAR, Jefferson was worth about the same as a lower-level QB, right behind Mariota.
If we add up each quarterback’s EPA and fitting in Justin Jefferson’s, it gives us a little different story.
In 2022, Jefferson accumulated 74.32 EPA for the Vikings, which would rank 9th out of all quarterbacks in terms of the QB EPA they accounted for. That value fits right in between Jimmy Garoppolo and Daniel Jones for the 2022 season, two mid-tier quarterbacks. In 2021, Jefferson’s total EPA would have ranked 13th out of all quarterbacks (in between Kyler Murray and Teddy Bridgewater), and his total EPA in 2020 would have ranked 21st of all quarterbacks (in between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Teddy Bridgewater). So, EPA tells us that Justin Jefferson is as valuable as a lower to mid-tier quarterback (more mid-tier as of recently), as opposed to the clearly lower-level QB comparison that PFF WAR gave us.
There’s also a less analytical and more practical application of his value which is to consider how many games the Vikings would have won if Jefferson hadn’t been on the field. They went 9-0 in games separated by seven points or less (11-0 in games decided by 8 points or less) and JJ caught 82 passes for 1,063 yards in those games. It’s safe to say they wouldn’t have come anywhere close to an undefeated record in those games without him.
The bottom line in the conversation about Jefferson’s value, particularly as he heads into long-term contract negotiations, is that he’s deserving of being considered in the ballpark of a QB. And with a second player on offense who is now almost as valuable as a mid-tier quarterback, the Vikings are gaining the edge on offense for years to come no matter who’s under center. However, if he’s worth what a mid-tier QB deserves on the open market, will that be the dollar figure his side aims for in negotiations? And will they be able to pay him and an expensive veteran QB at the same time?
