Vikings GM Takes His Victory Lap after the Justin Jefferson Extension
This week got started with a bang in Minnesota Vikings world as Justin Jefferson inked a new four-year contract to remain with the team.
The deal is worth a total of $140 million and makes Jefferson the highest-paid non-QB in the history of the NFL with an average annual value of $35 million. It didn’t get done without a little bit of drama, though, as rumors have swirled around the status of the wide receiver’s future with the Vikings for nearly a year.
With the deal done, though, Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah got his opportunity to take a bit of a victory lap at a press conference on Tuesday.
Vikings GM Takes His Victory Lap
“Obviously, we’ve had a pretty big offseason, but this day, this move was something that was foundational to everything we’re gonna be as a team this season and going forward. So I’m just really honored to be here to celebrate such a momentous day for this organization, but for Justin also and his family,” Adofo-Mensah stated to begin the presser.
It has been a wild offseason in Minnesota if we take a look at some of the departing talent that the team had to replace. Defensively, the Vikings lost three of their main pass rush contributors (Marcus Davenport, Danielle Hunter, D.J. Wonnum) as well as a starting linebacker in Jordan Hicks.
Somehow, that is only the tip of the iceberg, though. On offense, Minnesota watched names like Kirk Cousins, Alexander Mattison, and K.J. Osborn head elsewhere in free agency as three starting contributors during the 2023 season.
As a result, the Vikings needed to focus on bringing in young talent to replace some of these names, but they also made sure that one of their key cornerstones, Jefferson, will be around to lead the way for this new era of Vikings football.
Despite plenty of trade rumors over the past few months regarding Jefferson, Adofo-Mensah and the rest of Vikings leadership remained fully confident that a deal would get done to keep the star receiver in purple for the majority of his prime years. Adofo-Mensah went so far as to say during the NFL scouting combine that trading Jefferson had “not something that’s once crossed my mind” and that many of the reports surrounding Jefferson and the Vikings were “false.”
The GM lived up to that promise by officially getting the star to agree to a deal on Monday. “This day was going to come,” Adofo-Mensah stated. “There was never a second in my mind that we weren’t gonna be here.”
Adofo-Mensah mentioned that at the beginning of his GM tenure, he met with Jefferson, and the two joked how the negotiations would take “two seconds.”
Of course, that was not quite the reality, but it’s here now. The deal is done, and Justin Jefferson is a Viking for the foreseeable future.
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Josh Frey is a Class of 2020 graduate of The College of Idaho and managing editor of PurplePTSD.com. When he’s not writing about the NFL, Josh enjoys running, gaming, or rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks. Check out his Twitter account: @Freyed_Chicken.