Inside The Vikings

Vikings Superstar Justin Jefferson Wins NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award

Jefferson's historic season was rewarded with one of the league's top honors.

Will Ragatz

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Vikings superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson has been named the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year for the 2022 season, the league announced at the NFL Honors show on Thursday night.

Jefferson was never going to win MVP, but the OPOY award is a pretty nice consolation prize. The 23-year-old LSU product continued to ascend in his third season, catching 128 passes for 1,809 yards and 8 touchdowns, adding a rushing touchdown and two completed passes. He led the league in both receptions and yards, and his yards total was the sixth-highest in the history of the league.

It was an unbelievable season from Jefferson, who had already broken records as the only player with over 3,000 yards in his first two years. Benefiting from Kevin O'Connell's focus on the passing game, Jefferson had ten games with at least 100 receiving yards. He began the season with a 184-yard, two-touchdown explosion against the Packers — and kept going from there. Jefferson put up 147 yards on the Saints in London, 154 yards on the Bears, 193 yards on the Bills in the game of the year, 139 yards on the Patriots, and a career-best 223 yards on the Lions. That list doesn't even mention four of his 100-yard outings.

Jefferson was a huge reason why the Vikings went 13-4 and won the NFC North for the first time since 2017. His presence helped them go 11-0 in one-score games, as he made catches in big situations all year long.

No catch, of course, was bigger than Jefferson's game-saving one-handed snag in the win over the Bills. It'll go down in history as one of the best catches of all time — and it took home the award for Moment of the Year on Thursday night.

O'Connell has now coached each of the last two OPOY winners; Cooper Kupp took home the award a season ago. Jefferson is just the third Viking to ever win the award, joining Adrian Peterson (2012) and Fran Tarkenton (1975).

What does Jefferson have in store for year four?

"More to come," he said to close his first of two acceptance speeches on the night.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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