Justin Jefferson broke all kinds of NFL receiving records during his first five seasons, and he was voted as a unanimous selection to first-team All-Pro.
Winning a playoff game with the Minnesota Vikings is the next – long-awaited – achievement on his list. A performance commensurate with his superstar status would go a long way toward achieving that goal.
“It’s definitely important to have those moments,” Jefferson said after practice on Friday. “It’s win or go home. You have those moments, or you miss those moments and you would like to have those moments after the season. So you definitely don’t want to have those kinds of conversations.”
Despite all the spectacular aspects of Jefferson’s career, he has only appeared in one postseason. The Vikings won the NFC North 13-4 in 2022, but lost at home in the wild-card round to the New York Giants.
The next opportunity comes Monday night in Arizona, where the Vikings, as a 14-3 wild-card team, will face the NFC West champion Los Angeles Rams in a game rescheduled due to the wildfires in Southern California.
The Vikings entered playoff mode a week early, with their game in Detroit deciding the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the division title. The experience can do nothing but help despite the 31-9 loss to the Lions, in which quarterback Sam Darnold had his worst game of the season at the worst time.
“Our entire operation needed a reflection and a period of time to acknowledge what had happened,” coach Kevin O’Connell said. “We’ve tried to identify the things that we absolutely need to fix, and those are individual players like Sam and many others, and those are coaches.”
Darnold went 18 for 41 overall and just 3 for 9 when targeting Jefferson, resulting in the second-lowest catch percentage of Jefferson’s career.
“It’s just a matter of me being able to trust the throws, trust my feet, trust my eyes and just let it rip,” said Darnold, who sailed several steps too high and out of reach of his receivers in a uncharacteristic display of inaccuracy. “I think that’s the most important thing, when I see the throw there, just being able to let it rip and not think twice about it.”
There was no more frustrating sequence for Darnold, Jefferson and the Vikings in Detroit than midway through the second quarter, when an interception by Ivan Pace gave them the ball at the 3-yard line. Three straight passes from Darnold to Jefferson resulted in three straight incompletions and forced O’Connell to settle for a short field goal.
The first was too far in and was almost intercepted. The following were also too high.
“It happens. Everyone’s not perfect. There’s going to be times when we’re going to have that setback,” Jefferson said. “It’s about just bouncing back.”
