Justin Jefferson's most underrated skill: Fearlessness
EAGAN — With the Minnesota Vikings trailing 21-17 early in the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Chargers, Justin Jefferson decided he had quite enough of playing from behind. He cut across the middle of the field, snagged Kirk Cousins’s pass out of the air and scored a 52-yard touchdown. An all-world play from the NFL’s best receiver.
There was a detail of Jefferson’s catch-and-run that stood out. After he made the reception, a Chargers defender came flying in and nearly took him down after about 15 yards. But Jefferson’s feet never stopped moving. He didn’t slow down when he caught the ball, simply accelerating right past the tackle and all the way to paydirt. When he got to the end zone he revealed that The Griddy now has a winged element.
Things didn’t ultimately go their way but the play gave the Vikings a chance to win the game. Cousins had just been sacked and the Vikings were looking at second-and-14 from the 48-yard line. They needed something big. Right before the play, ESPN’s Gamecast gave the Chargers a 67% chance to win. When Jefferson walked into the end zone, L.A.’s odds sunk to 45%.
How did he make such an exceptional play look so easy? Head coach Kevin O’Connell explained how Jefferson’s fearless playing style led to the touchdown.
“Although there wasn’t a defender hitting him as he went over the middle right there, they brought a [line]backer fire zone so there was a voided area in the middle of the field. But just the way he went in there fearless. He doesn’t know [the linebacker isn’t there],” O’Connell explained. “He just knows he’s running an in-cut there and can show up within the rhythm and timing of Kirk. That is why he was able to catch and run through that so effortlesslyfor him to score on that it is just a testament to you’ve got to play a certain style with how fast the NFL game is to maximize those opportunities like that one.”
Like a rock climber going up a mountain without a harness, Jefferson doesn’t have the same natural inclination to protect himself that any normal human would have in that situation, which allows him to attack the football and make high difficulty plays at a speed that most cannot.
“Among many traits, the trait that I think might be his best is he’s pretty fearless,” Cousins said. “He catches the ball and people are all around him. There’s a lot of [situations where] guys get alligator arms and they hear footsteps – that’s just not him. He runs through it….I’m not trying to put him in those situations where he’s getting hit and having to hear footsteps a lot, but when he does, he tends to make the play, hold onto the ball, and that’s a great thing to see… I told him on a couple plays they were great plays, and he said, ‘Hey man, you put the ball there, it’s my job to go catch it.’ So he also sets high standards for himself that, ‘If it’s in my general area, shame on me if I don’t catch it.’”
Much of the conversation surrounding receivers going over the middle of the field focuses on the old days of safeties and linebackers smashing receivers and how the NFL has changed the rules to protect stars. That’s factually correct but that doesn’t take away from the fear factor playing a role for receivers, who still get hit hard going over the middle or crash to the ground from four feet in the air while chasing a ball against a defender. Last year Jefferson made an NFL-best 22 contested catches.
“I feel like that’s what separates the great ones,” Jefferson said. “Playing this game you gotta be fearless. You are looking at the ball and you don’t know where the defenders are so you have to trust in the quarterback to throw the ball where it needs to be and for the play to work out. At that moment, I’m just trying to score and make a play for my team. I’ve been eager to get into the end zone for the past three games.”
Fellow receiver Brandon Powell, who is gutsy enough to return punts in the NFL, said he thinks the courage to play the position comes from growing up around the game — and there’s no chance of playing it exceptionally well without fearlessness.
“I think it’s something [that starts] as a little kid when you’re playing football,” Powell said. “It’s a physical sport and you know you’re going to get hit. If you’re out there like, ‘Oh man, somebody’s going to hit me,’ you probably won’t do too good. It’s something you learn as a little kid: Be fearless. If you can do that alone, it’ll solve a lot of problems.”
Powell also added that trusting the quarterback not to throw you into dangerous situations is important too.
Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips connects his lack of worry about defenders hitting him when blazing across the middle to how he works in practice and how much he cares about driving the team’s success.
“I can’t tell you where it comes from or how he’s that fearless, he’s just naturally tough, he has a pride about him how he plays the game, he works, for a guy who’s arguably the best receiver in the league in my opinion the way he goes about his work and bounces around in practice and runs off the ball,” Phillips said.
Through three games Jefferson leads the NFL in receiving and is averaging 17.0 yards per reception. He has the second most contested catch opportunities (per PFF), zero drops and Cousins has a 123.5 QB rating when targeting his star receiver. Not that there was any concern that Jefferson would regress from last year’s historic marks but his lack of fear when playing the position has carried him to another level so far this season.
“He’s really special,” Phillips said.
