Justin Jefferson Can Reach His Season Goal on Sunday
The Vikings still have an outside chance to reach the playoffs. A win over the Lions and losses by either the Buccanneers or Saints and additionally by the Seahawks and Packers would ensure the seventh seed in the NFC playoff picture. While it might be the better long-term strategy to miss out on the postseason, and the fanbase also prefers an improved draft position, the players won’t quit.
Justin Jefferson Can Reach His Season Goal on Sunday
Professional athletes are elite competitors who always want to win and reach their personal goals. They don’t care about draft position and won’t jeopardize their future paychecks by voluntarily playing badly.
One of those guys is Justin Jefferson. The reigning Offensive Player of the Year, at least for a few more weeks, has had a disappointing fourth career season, and it is not his fault. A hamstring injury kept him out of all but nine games, and he missed parts of contests that equal roughly one more game because of injuries.
Despite all that and the added QB struggles, he has still amassed 882 yards on 56 catches and four touchdowns in the season. He needs 118 yards in the final game of the campaign to reach the 1,000-yard milestone for the fourth straight year. When he returned from his lengthy absence, he updated his season goal to 1,000 yards after his initial goal was to become the first player in NFL history with 2,000 receiving yards after the hamstring injury derailed that fantasy:
Since I got hurt the new goal is 1,000 yards. I want to end every single year over 1,000 yards…It’s been hard to adjust those goals honestly. To have missed seven games throughout the season, especially on the pace that I was going before the injury. It’s a little tough to see Tyreek [Hill] going crazy every single week, to see different people throughout the whole league doing tremendous things. It’s been tough because it’s the first season that I’ve been hurt since I’ve been into the league.
Justin Jefferson
In his return from IR just after those words, Jefferson had to exit the game in Las Vegas with only 27 yards, making a trip to the local hospital instead of the endzone, but in the following three games, he registered 284 yards, showing his full arsenal of crazy catches, including a prayer on a third-and-28 to keep the division hopes alive versus Detroit.
The necessary 118 yards would be a tough ask for any receiver and unlikely to be achieved, but Jefferson isn’t an average player, as he is the all-time record-holder for receiving yards per game with 96.7. It remains to be seen which quarterback will throw him the ball. For his statistics, he should want Nick Mullens, who has shown the ability to get the ball to his playmakers, under center.
While he is good enough to reach his goal, and the Vikings could additionally force-feed him to keep him happy, the smartest way to handle the season finale might be for JJ to sit out the probably meaningless game, preserving his body for the offseason and the subsequent 2024 campaign.
Jefferson is expected to sign a massive contract extension in the next few months after he and the franchise couldn’t agree on a deal in the previous offseason. However, all parties involved have stated their desire to find a solution, which should be the anticipated outcome.
Janik Eckardt is a football fan who likes numbers and stats. The Vikings became his favorite team despite their quarterback at the time, Christian Ponder. He is a walking soccer encyclopedia, loves watching sitcoms, and Classic rock is his music genre of choice. Follow him on Twitter if you like the Vikings: @JanikEckardt
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