Justin Jefferson, Freshly Entered into Greatest WR Ever Debate, Staring Down a Pivotal ’25 Season
In my (admittedly unprofessional) opinion, there is a difference between the “greatest” of all time and the “best” of all time when it comes to sports debates and arguments about who the “GOAT” is in whatever context that’s being debated.
Therefore, given my stance on the meaning of those words, it is unlikely that Justin Jefferson (or anyone, for that matter) will reach Jerry Rice when it comes to the NFL’s GOAT WR, though Jefferson could become one of the best ever.
Justin Jefferson
The Possibility of Being The Greatest Ever
To me, being “great” rests in defining one by his/her accolades, mostly talking about a player’s championships while also taking individual contributions into account.
Jerry Rice seems untouchable due to a career receiving yards mark of 22,895 as well as his three Super Bowl victories. Although — and this may be controversial but not surprising since you’re reading off of a website based around the Minnesota Vikings — it is my opinion that Randy Moss is the best WR of all-time, because there aren’t too many things that he couldn’t do better than Rice when you take away the team accomplishments.
That same Mr. Moss, who will thankfully be returning to ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast this coming season, has given the next great Minnesota Vikings WR Justin Jefferson a hefty endorsement that ties into these different parameters of mastery that we’ve discussed.
In a recent interview with TMZ Sports, Randy Moss had this to say about the potential of him being surpassed by Justin Jefferson as the greatest Vikings WR of all time.
“I think Justin Jefferson is on pace to be arguably the greatest ever and definitely the greatest Viking to ever do it,” Moss says. He continues: “I’ve always been a fan of a complete football player, where you can score from anywhere on the field, and Justin brings that to the table.”
It goes without saying, but receiving a wild, bold endorsement from Randy Moss is pretty sick. If you think his statement is crazy, consider this: you would be telling RANDY MOSS that he is WRONG about a WIDE RECEIVER.
RANDY MOSS. WIDE RECEIVER.
As Sports Illustrated mentions, it may not be Moss that Justin Jefferson has to surpass to become the “greatest” Vikings WR ever. In terms of accolades, being the Vikings’ leading WR in the franchise’s history, Jefferson will be chasing Randy Moss’ fellow Hall-of-Famer: Cris Carter. Cris Carter amassed 12,383 receiving yards while wearing a Vikings uniform, while Randy Moss “only” accumulated 9,316 yards as a Viking.
Justin Jefferson is already 4th on the Vikings’ all-time leading receivers list, and he’ll be 3rd after two or three games this season, as he is only 204 yards behind (7,432) Anthony Carter (7,636) for that spot in Minnesota history. Jefferson cracked into the top 5 after surpassing Adam Thielen (6,682) this past season.
It’s pretty crazy to think, but please stick with me here. If you take Justin Jefferson’s career yardage-per-game average (96.5) and multiply it by 7 to account for the 7 games he missed in 2023 (not to mention the first two games of his career that Mike Zimmer decided not to start him for some reason), and add that number (675) to Jefferson’s career 7,432 receiving yards, then Justin Jefferson would currently be at 8,107 career receiving yards. That means he would only need 1,210 receiving yards in 2025 to surpass Randy Moss on the Vikings’ all-time leading receivers list (he’s never had below 1,400 yards in a fully healthy season).
Jefferson started playing pro ball in 2020 and was just going to be a “slot guy”, by the way.
