How Can The Vikings Help Justin Jefferson Overcome His Mini-Slump?
K. Joudry
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Do two modest games count as a slump? For a wide receiver as sensational as the Vikings’ Justin Jefferson, the answer may be yes.
Coming into the year, the expectations were very high for the former LSU star. He was coming off back-to-back incredible seasons in the NFL. For the first time, he’d be playing for an offense-first head coach. Jefferson was outspoken about his excitement for the year.
A strong Week 1 game seemingly confirmed what we all expected. Jefferson overwhelmed a talented Packers defense. He turned 11 targets into 9 catches, 184 yards, and a pair of touchdowns.
Since then, Justin Jefferson has been pretty quiet in the Vikings offense. Instead of elite production, he put together humdrum stats against the Eagles: 6 catches and 48 scoreless yards. The Lions game was even worse: 3 catches went for 14 yards. His yards-per-catch average has gone from 20.44 to 8.0 to 4.67 across these three games. So, not only is he catching less passes, but they’ve been less and less explosive.
As the above tweet suggests, Jefferson is still helping his team. He demands a ton of attention, so the rest of the players find more green grass.
That being said, Jefferson is more than a decoy. He’s perhaps the most important player on the team. The coaching staff is relying on him to give the offense an advantage on a weekly basis. In a perfect world, he’ll have a gravitational pull on the opposition’s secondary and still be able to put up huge stats. It’s a lofty goal and yet he’s one of the players capable of pulling it off.
Following the game, Jefferson confirmed that the game was frustrating: “It is frustrating for sure. Just being the type of player that I am douple and triple teams are going to come.” As he goes on to note, though, “even when they want to double team me, I know that somebody will be open.”
Kirk Cousins was asked about his top receiver’s tough afternoon. Cousins described the importance of being able to “stay the course” and how “he’s got a lot of great games ahead.”
Kevin O’Connell suggested that the team will find a way to get him open: “Justin had a huge impact on this game. It just didn’t show up in the stat sheet. But that’s not good enough. I have to do a better job of giving Justin different aspects of lining up in different spots, different personnel groupings, whatever I need to do to help him because he’s an ultra competitor, and we’ll get him going.”
The commitment from the coach is a good thing. The Vikings need to make it a priority to prioritize Justin Jefferson in their offense.
Now, I know I’ve been among those who have been pushing for greater balance on offense (especially when it comes to getting Adam Thielen more targets). What I’ll hasten to add is that featuring Jefferson need not come at the expense of offensive unpredictability. In fact, I see these things as walking hand-in-hand. Balancing the workload helps Jefferson to thrive by keeping defenses honest.
When O’Connell effectively integrates all of his weapons, it’ll be very difficult to predict what the offense will do next. An unpredictable offense is often a potent offense.
As O’Connell suggests, it’ll likely be productive to move Jefferson around more. Deploying him in unique, creative ways is a good thing. Perhaps more bunch formations would make it more challenging to double him; more pre-snap motion could similarly make it difficult to keep up with him.
Whatever the solution, it’s safe to say that the team needs Justin Jefferson to be elite. When he’s on, Minnesota’s offense is very difficult to corral. The upcoming London game will give the team another shot at featuring their star receiver.
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