The Recent Words from Kevin O’Connell Should Lead to Alarm Bells Going Off
Star wide receiver Justin Jefferson is the Vikings’ best player. Depending on one’s opinion, Mr. Jefferson may be the team’s most important player, too. When the head coach needs to run interference for the WR1’s effort (or lack thereof), there are problems.
On Monday, Kevin O’Connell stepped in front of the Minnesota media, talking for close to twenty minutes. At one point, Coach O’Connell was asked about Jefferson’s “body language” coming off the interceptions: “I think there was some frustration, and maybe with not having a couple calls go his way, from a referee standpoint.” Not long afterwards, O’Connell described Jefferson as “so competitive” before explaining that he has “no concerns” about his top receiver.
Kevin O’Connell, Justin Jefferson, & The Spark that Can’t Become a Fire
A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The Vikings must proceed with internal urgency to ensure the team is united.
At present, there is no crisis. Do note, however, that the best way to solve a crisis is to ensure that it never arrives in the first place. If there’s any small evidence of discontent from a historically-great player functioning on a major contract, Minnesota must work toward assuaging whatever concerns are present within #18. Over and over again, Jefferson has demonstrated his competitive zeal, team-first approach, and strong leadership; nevertheless, one couldn’t blame him if he was beginning to lose patience.
As things stand, J.J. McCarthy is playing unsustainably poor football. The most glaring eyesore is rests in completing 53.7% of his passes. In the modern NFL, failing to eclipse 60% — and by a healthy margin, no less — is very poor.
Recently, one of the most notorious examples of a young quarterback who didn’t complete enough passes has been Anthony Richardson (the one who has been demoted in favor of Daniel Jones). The raw, talented No. 4 pick has completed 50.6% of his career passes. A step back from McCarthy, yes, but not by a mile.
When he’s targeting Justin Jefferson, J.J. McCarthy has completed 17/34 passes. That’s a worse-than-Anthony-Richardson completion percentage coming in at 50.0%.
Justin Jefferson’s Stats with J.J. McCarthy at Quarterback
| Week | Targets | Catches | Yards | TDs |
| 1 | 7 | 4 | 44 | 1 |
| 2 | 6 | 3 | 81 | 0 |
| 9 | 9 | 6 | 47 | 1 |
| 10 | 12 | 4 | 37 | 0 |
Watch the interception from Marlon Humphrey. Shift from the defender over to Justin Jefferson. What do you see? To my eye, there’s a receiver who looks completely deflated by yet another gaffe. The motivation for the poor body language is beyond by capacity to discern — I can’t read minds — but I can say that Aaron Jones, C.J. Ham, and other Vikings are very noticeably putting in better effort.
Consider, as well, a different deep shot to Jefferson, a play where he breaks free on a deep post while lined up along the right side. Sam Darnold hits his WR1 in the mitts — Jefferson stays on his feet, too — in a play where there is no question about the effort all around. Oh, and scroll down to a different interception where Jefferson absolutely wallops the defender in a way where no one was questioning the effort but whether the hit was dirty.
Jefferson is the king of yardage. Without exaggerating, there has been no receiver better when it comes to piling up receiving yardage. He hasn’t yet cleared 100 yards with McCarthy passing the football. Nor, in fact, has Jefferson even hit his per-game average for receiving yards, the historically-great 94.4 yards-per-game average that is surpassed by … no one in NFL history.
Consider, as well, folks what Justin Jefferson has gone through so far in his career.
Picked at No. 22 in 2020 after (very misguided) critiques about not being able to survive outside of the slot, Justin Jefferson has been smashing records through no shortage of turmoil. The first pair of seasons with Mike Zimmer were losing ones. Kevin O’Connell has led the charge toward better regular season records, though the postseason success has been M.I.A.
Moreover, there has been a pile of quarterback shuffling, including failed efforts to consistently coax strong play out of Nick Mullens, Joshua Dobbs, and Jaren Hall. There has been the hamstring injury and stumbling through a poor 2023 that finished off with a 7-10 record. Has the top coach ever needed to defend Jefferson’s for his effort?
Sitting on a four-year contract that’s paying him $140 million, Justin Jefferson is Minnesota’s cornerstone player. Without a thriving Jefferson, the Vikings will be an underwhelming football team (at best). Without a content Jefferson, the Vikings are flirting with disaster since they’ll become a kingdom divided against itself.
Next up for Kevin O’Connell is a Bears battle on Sunday, November 16th.
