Justin Jefferson’s message to his new Vikings quarterback: Trust me

Every so often during the two-month stretch when the Vikings would make the most critical decision of Kevin O’Connell’s tenure, the coach would place a call to its most important stakeholder.

O’Connell’s calls with Justin Jefferson, the receiver says now, were more to provide the receiver with updates on the Vikings’ quarterback shift than to seek his input on it. “I would never really voice a quarterback that I really want, because I don’t feel like there’s a quarterback for me to really say I want to play with, and that’s not my job to say,” Jefferson said.

The receiver had become one of the most important voices in the Vikings’ locker room, though, and the fact the Vikings and Jefferson had yet to finalize a contract extension merited the extra layer of communication. O’Connell gave Jefferson the latest; Jefferson responded with an assured nonchalance.

“Whether they were dialed in to me or whether they were not having me in the loop at all didn’t really matter to me,” he said. “Whatever quarterback they go and get, I’m going to make the best out of the situation, and I’m going to give them all the confidence in the world, like he’s the number one quarterback in the league.”

Confidence was the theme Jefferson repeated in a draft night phone call with J.J. McCarthy, and the one to which he returned several times during an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune before his first NFL season without Kirk Cousins, the quarterback who’s thrown him all but two of his 30 NFL receiving touchdowns. Jefferson will have to click with Sam Darnold this year, before a long-term connection with McCarthy begins as soon as 2025.

Despite missing seven games with a hamstring injury last year, Jefferson set the NFL record for receiving yards through the first four years of his career; he has yet to finish a season without more receiving yards than any player in NFL history at the same juncture of his career. He speaks openly of his ambitions: reaching the Hall of Fame, rewriting NFL record books, leaving the game regarded as the best receiver ever. His four-year, $140 million deal with the Vikings expires three months before his 30th birthday; much of his prime will hinge on whether he can replicate with Darnold and McCarthy the success he enjoyed with Cousins.

Jefferson was one of Cousins’ most outspoken advocates; he will play the next stage of his career with more NFL stature than his quarterback, and will have reporters approaching him regularly for his thoughts on the players throwing him the ball. Listening to him speak about Darnold and McCarthy now, it’s clear there’s the same intent that coursed through his comments about Cousins. He wants his quarterbacks to believe they can make any throw on the field, and to trust he’ll come down with any ball they send his way.

”It’s going to be different,” Jefferson said. “But I want it to be the same for them to have the confidence in me to go and make a play, just like Kirk did in those opportunities and those situations. I low-key want them to have more confidence than what Kirk had. Kirk is more comfortable in the system, [with] him running it early on in Washington. It’s just to give them an extra boost and extra confidence; I want to go up and make a play for them whenever they give me the chance.”

His passes this season will come from Darnold, with whom Jefferson first worked after reporting to the Vikings’ mandatory minicamp in June once his contract was finalized. He was quickly struck by Darnold’s arm strength, and the two built an especially strong connection in the red zone during training camp practices, with Darnold throwing a few on-the-move darts to Jefferson for touchdowns.

”Those are the money-makers there,” Jefferson said. “That’s somewhere we’ve been struggling the previous year. The plays he’s making [in practices] are definitely going to transition to Sundays.”

The relationship on which the Vikings appear to have staked their plans, though, is the one Jefferson will have with McCarthy, whom Jefferson called “the franchise quarterback we’re going to talk about in the future.” Their lockers are next to one another at the Vikings’ practice facility; the two are represented by the same agency. After the Vikings selected McCarthy 10th overall, Jefferson was given the quarterback’s phone number. His congratulatory call to McCarthy featured mantras he’s often repeated to himself.

”I was just letting him know, ‘This is still the start of your dream. Your dream hasn’t fully come true yet,’ ” Jefferson said. “Just go in there with confidence, to go in there and be that number one player, to be that top player in this league. I feel like that’s what a lot of [players], especially rookies, have trouble with: coming into the league with confidence, knowing they can make an impact right away. That’s something I carried myself with my rookie year, so I was just passing that down to him.”

O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips say Jefferson was more assertive as the Vikings installed their offense, sharing what he’s learned and the details the team has added to plays over the past two years. He’s spent time with Darnold drilling the nuances that are unique to his routes.

“I might put a little extra step or two, just to make a move on a corner, that some other receivers might not do,” Jefferson said. “They might rush the route, or try to beat them with speed, where I more use my footwork.”

The details in his routes are there to counter the outsize attention he’s long faced from defenses, who often break tendencies to put extra safety help on Jefferson’s side or devote multiple defenders to him. Particularly on underneath routes, Phillips said, the Vikings give Jefferson the freedom to read a coverage scheme or a cornerback’s leverage and adjust his steps.

“He was always great down the field. But if you want to catch a ton of balls in this league, you also have to be able to run underneath routes as well,” Phillips said. “So those types of things that I’ve really seen an improvement on.”

Those routes change the Vikings’ playbook “a good bit,” Jefferson said, and they might seem unorthodox to a quarterback who’s new to Minnesota. In addition to his meetings with the Vikings’ quarterbacks, O’Connell holds regular strategy talks with Jefferson, asking for his input on ways the offense can manipulate a particular play and providing reminders of how he can help Darnold with what the coach called “all these little detailed things you can’t really put in a playbook.”

“You look at certain coverages, whether it’s third downs or base game plan, but you’ve obviously got to have an understanding that they’re probably going to throw a little wrinkle at us for him,” Darnold said. “And then coming out here every single day [for practice] and seeing how they treat Justin, whether it’s a safety over the top, or even the safety acting like he’s going to be over the top and the coming down in coverage, it’s definitely a good look for what we’re going to get during the season.”

The extra work is a function of a problem most passers would quickly invite.

“I think any quarterback would love the chance to have to adjust to throwing to Justin Jefferson,” Phillips said. “The trust that you can have to anticipate throws when he’s about to make a cut, whereas maybe a [normal] guy you’d want to just take one more click and make sure he’s crossing this guy’s face, you just know that Justin’s gonna do it.”

If the Vikings’ new quarterbacks have that trust in him, Jefferson reasons, they’ll have more trust in themselves. It’s a thesis central to the Vikings’ transition at quarterback, and, perhaps, to the future of their offense.

“I just try to give the quarterbacks confidence to throw me those 50-50 jump balls,” Jefferson said. “Sometimes, it’s a little bit difficult for them to really just give me a chance, knowing I’m going to come down with it. It’s difficult trying to read the different schemes and their normal reads. But when I have that matchup or they see it’s that type of game, I always try to give them that word in the back of their head, that they have me as an option if things get ugly.”