Will Justin Jefferson be considered the best receiver in football soon? 'It's just a matter of time'
EAGAN — There’s camp buzz and then there’s a man on a mission. Justin Jefferson is the latter.
Over two days of joint practices against the San Francisco 49ers, Jefferson caught a dozen passes, many of which ended in defenders shaking their heads. He came out of the backfield for a big play, he Moss’d a guy, he bolted past another helpless guy. Kirk Cousins simply let the ball glide into the air and watched magic happen.
Through three weeks of training camp, Jefferson is making his preseason goal look like it could become reality.
“I’m not labeled as the best receiver [in the NFL] at this point, so that’s my motivation,” Jefferson said at the beginning of training camp.
Throughout history there have only been a few undisputed champions of their positions. Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, Walter Payton, Joe Montana, Randy Moss, Tom Brady, Aaron Donald, to name a few.
Jefferson wants his name there.
He already has a good case. He set the rookie record for receiving and then nearly cleared Randy Moss’s team record. No receiver has more yards than Jefferson over the last two seasons and Pro Football Focus graded him second best in 2020 and third in 2021. In total, Cousins has targeted Jefferson 284 times and produced a 115.0 QB rating on those throws (per PFF).
“I didn’t realize, really, how good he was until you see him up close – the way he moves, the way he can bend, his ability to play underneath himself,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “He’s just a really impressive guy who’s a good person who works hard every day at it. He wants to be the best. And I think he’s got a chance to be that at some point if he can sustain long enough.”
As incredible as Jefferson’s numbers are, there are other players to chase down. Davante Adams ranked No. 1 by PFF last year and registered a 136.5 QB rating on his targets. Cooper Kupp had the greatest fantasy football season ever and was the top target of Matthew Stafford on the game-winning drive in the Super Bowl. Ja’Marr Chase averaged 3.0 more yards per reception than Jefferson.
“He said that’s his goal, he knows he’s not right there this second, but that’s his goal,” receiver Adam Thielen said. “That’s exciting, right?… I think that just shows his maturity level, that he’s not saying, he’s not proclaiming it right now, but he’s saying, ‘I’m working toward that.’”
Jefferson, who turned 23 in June, has been on this path for a long time. Patrick Peterson first met Jefferson when he was 11 years old and his eyes were already set on becoming an NFL star.
“I remember him telling me all the time he’s going to make these same catches that he was making in the WCA parking lot at Tiger Stadium,” Peterson said.
When Peterson visited LSU practice during Jefferson’s college years, the Vikings’ top receiver wanted to run one-on-ones against him. Over the last year, the cornerback who was once considered the best in the NFL at his craft and the receiver trying to gain that level of adulation have spent plenty of time together, whether it’s playing basketball or going over route/coverage details. The soon-to-be gold jacket guy has taken notice of the way in which Jefferson has sharpened his natural skills.
“Came into camp and he looks a little bigger, a little stronger and added a little more mass onto his body,” Peterson said. “He has all the tools ever since he was a rookie. He's a very polished route runner, he can catch any ball, he's sharp off the line of scrimmage versus press, he makes every route look the same when he's coming in and out of his breaks.”
From his route running to his maturity and focus, there’s a lot of good explanations for Jefferson’s fast ascension toward the top of everyone’s receiver lists but the question is how he’s supposed to improve on something that is already nearly unprecedented.
“You don't have to do anything differently, you don't have to change, you don't have to take another step,” Cousins said. “The challenge will be to do it again and again and again, and I've said that here before. If it was easy to do, more players would do it. You see a lot of people in this league go to a Pro Bowl, have some success, and then you ask the question 'What happened to him?' So I've been challenging him to make sure that question never is asked about you, Justin.”
Cousins’ point holds up but when it comes to young receivers bursting on the scene, there is usually greatness ahead. Since 2000, there have been 23 receivers to gain more than 2,000 yards in the first two years of their careers and only nine failed to produce multiple Pro Bowls. Three haven’t reached their fourth year in the NFL yet (Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf and CeeDee Lamb) and the others were still good players in Marques Colston, Josh Gordon, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mike Wallace, Dwayne Bowe and Sammy Watkins. Among the players with similar yardage in the first two years as Jefferson are Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, AJ Green and Julio Jones.
Those names from the previous era of brilliant receivers are pretty telling when it comes to Jefferson’s ultimate goal: Unless your name is Jerry Rice or Randy Moss, it’s hard to be dubbed the clear-cut No. 1 receiver in the game. Between 2010 and 2020, Julio Jones, Antonio Brown and Larry Fitzgerald gained over 10,000 yards and caught more than 800 passes. Nobody else in the league accomplished that feat during that time span but it’s pretty difficult to say definitively which one of them was the NFL’s top dog.
That doesn’t mean Jefferson can’t run away with the title, like Rice or Moss but he’ll need a few things. The first is a winning team. Fair or not, legends are usually made in the playoffs. When Jefferson was asked why he isn’t already the clear-cut best player at his position, he said he didn’t know. It isn’t his fault in the slightest but missing the playoffs two years in a row is enough to put a player out of sight aside from the fantasy community, no matter how great. Was Aaron Donald talked about as the GOAT when he played for Jeff Fisher? Would Tom Brady be Tom Brady with the same stats if they were all in 7-9 seasons?
The other part is an offense that is driven foremost by Jefferson. Target numbers suggest that was the case already but he ranks eighth in targets when his team is trailing by at least two scores and no receiver has more yardage when his team is down by at least nine points.
During the Mike Zimmer era, the Vikings were a run-first team. Now with Kevin O’Connell at the helm, Jefferson is fitting into an offense that helped Cooper Kupp become the league’s leader in receptions.
“I just have faith in the coaching staff and for them to call the right plays at the right time and getting the ball to the playmakers,” Jefferson told Ben Leber on the sideline during the Vikings’ first preseason game. “I’m really excited about the whole new offense and the whole new coaching staff going into the new season.”
Even if it all comes together, somebody else may breakout too and share the title. CeeDee Lamb is the now Dallas’s No. 1 target with Amari Cooper gone. Adams could drag the Raiders to the playoffs with Derek Carr. Ja’Marr Chase could top his incredible rookie year or one of the rookies could become the next Jefferson. So he may not get the undisputed belt with another phenomenal season.
Still, with his training camp showing, it’s clear Jefferson is going to chase that goal regardless.
“It's just a matter of time,” Peterson said.
