How the NFL missed on Justin Jefferson
Even the Vikings didn't expect him to dominate as an outside receiver this quickly
On draft night, Aaron Rodgers was watching, hoping and waiting. The Green Bay Packers’ future Hall of Fame quarterback had been doing a little college scouting prior to the draft and had his eyes on one particular wide receiver.
“I was watching the draft and thinking about which receiver might be there at that time,” Rodgers told Kyle Brandt of NFL Network. “And I think there was a run on them there in the early 20s. I know the kid from LSU who I loved watching went…to Minnesota in the early 20s.”
The Packers went on to trade up for quarterback Jordan Love, leaving Rodgers disappointed. Not only did his team miss out on Justin Jefferson but he landed a grand total of zero new receivers that night.
While Rodgers may have “loved” what he saw in Jefferson, many teams and many draft analysts had doubts. Four receivers were picked ahead of him.
Usually it takes three years to decide whether teams and analysts were right or wrong about a pick. Not with Jefferson. They were wrong almost instantly.
In his first start, Jefferson went for 175 yards against Tennessee and he hasn’t stopped since. Last week he broke Randy Moss’s record for most 100-yard games by a rookie receiver and he currently ranks third in total yards, third in yards per reception and as the fourth-best graded receiver by PFF.
Jefferson is on track to win Offensive Rookie of the Year and it isn’t bold to suggest that if teams were re-drafting knowing what they know now, he would land in the top five picks.
So how could all these teams with all these scouts and all these executives miss so badly?
The LSU factor
Justin Jefferson is proud as heck that he went to LSU. His brothers went there. He won a national championship there. Take a deep dive into all of his Zoom press conferences this year and you’d struggle to find a single one where he doesn’t mention LSU.
But there’s a case to be made that playing for LSU hurt Jefferson’s draft stock.
While he caught 111 passes for 1,540 yards and 18 touchdowns and had great under-the-radar numbers like contested-catch percentage, people around the league wondered how much of that was driven by the excellence of his No. 1 overall pick QB and terrific play caller.
“They predominantly ran four and five wide receiver sets and the field was completely spread,” said CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso, who had Jefferson as a second-round pick. “He had Joe Burrow throwing him the football and the fact that a fair amount of his production was schemed open. Deep over routes, play-action, RPOs where the linebacker is sucked up and he had the middle of the field all to himself.”
Burrow was picked No. 1 overall. LSU passing game coordinator and receivers coach Joe Brady earned an NFL offensive coordinator job with the Carolina Panthers based on his efforts to make the Tigers’ offense tick. Fellow receiver Ja’Marr Chase ended 2019 as the likely top receiver of the 2020 class. So yeah, there was a lot of talent around him.
But when the NFL Combine came around, Jefferson showed that his statistics matched up with his raw athleticism. The website Relative Athletic Scores, which combines height-weight with scores in Combine events, graded Jefferson a 9.69 out of 10 athlete for his position. To put that in context, Randy Moss and DK Metcalf both scored a 9.67.
Still, in a league dominated by brilliant route runners like Stefon Diggs, Keenan Allen, DeAndre Hopins, Tyler Lockett etc., it was hard to say if Jefferson’s route running was good enough to create separation when he was usually running wide open on college fields.
“I didn’t see the route-running chops that he has shown…I see highlights on Twitter and…I’m blown away,” Trapasso said. “Not saying he never showed it, I just didn’t see it. I thought so much of it was that perfect storm of awesomeness at LSU last season.”
Trapasso wonders if different usage at LSU would have better displayed his NFL skills.
“I’m taking a huge L on this one,” Trapasso said.
To be fair, so is the rest of the NFL.
The slot
The Vikings get to throw a back-patting party every week when Jefferson makes ridiculous game-changing catches. Quarterback Kirk Cousins ranks No. 1 in the NFL in completion percentage over expectation based on depth of target and closeness of defenders. That’s in large part thanks to Jefferson.
But the Vikings might be more lucky than good. The previous two receivers they took in the first round — Troy Williamson and Laquon Treadwell — went bust quickly. And the Philadelphia Eagles decided to pick a guy with 43 catches at TCU just before Jefferson.
See, the Vikings had the same questions about Jefferson as everybody else. At the 22nd pick, however, he was just too darn good to pass up.
“One of the things that really stands out to me is when Justin came out, I think he had 100-plus catches his last year and like 90 of them or something were in the slot – they were inside,” offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak said. “So there was a lot of chatter that he was an inside, slot receiver and man, I kept looking at him athletically and his length and those type of things.”
Jefferson kept hearing over and over about the fact that he played predominantly in the slot.
“Not being able to play outside receiver, get off press, a lot of questions were me being a fast guy, a deep threat guy,” Jefferson said, smiling. “So now this year, I have been doing all of those things.”
In Jefferson’s mind, the focus on his play in the slot was bizarre. The previous year at LSU he was an outside receiver and gained 875 yards with six touchdowns as a sophomore. So why didn’t people think he could play outside?
“I have no idea,” Jefferson said. “I don’t really know exactly where they’re getting that information from or anything. Last year was the first time I played slot in my whole career.”
“I just use that as fuel towards my game and I just go out there and try to prove everybody wrong,” Jefferson added.
The criticism might not have just missed the mark on this particular player but on the entire direction of the NFL.
The league’s highest graded receiver by PFF Davante Adams has 38 catches on 46 targets and seven touchdowns out of the slot. Throws in his direction when lining up in the slot make up 41% of his total targets (per PFF).
That’s not particularly unique. Keenan Allen lines up in the slot 52% of the time. Tyreek Hill 55%. In 2017, Adam Thielen was a slot receiver on more than 50% of snaps. Stefon Diggs lined up inside 62% of the time in 2016 and then adapted his role to the outside over the years.
“To move around on the field, go outside, have to get physical with corners, come inside and work against nickels – those types of things, I think that’s been probably the thing that happened maybe a lot quicker than we thought it would,” Kubiak said.
Indeed a good amount of Jefferson’s breakout performance has come with him playing the same role as he did at LSU. He has 19 catches for 407 yards as a slot receiver. Turns out in 2020, everybody lines up everywhere.
There were people who were skeptical of the “slot receiver” label for Jefferson.
“I tried not to fall into the trap of saying ‘he’s a slot only,’” said Yahoo! Sports draft analyst Eric Edholm on the Purple Insider Podcast. “There were a lot of factors that suggested that had he played outside there would have been no issue whatsoever.”
Still Edholm said Jefferson is a “back-to-the-drawing-board” player because he ranked the Vikings’ superstar rookie as the 27th best player in the draft.
“What I said was: His best football has come playing in the slot, can he do other things? That was the question people had asked,” Edholm said. “I think we’re going to say yeah.”
The intangibles
One thing you can’t know until a player actually arrives on the field in an NFL uniform is how his intangibles will translate. Will he study? Is he tough enough? Will he sacrifice? Will he learn? Will he get along with other players in the locker room?
Kubiak felt he had a beat on this one.
“The biggest thing for me was I had a couple coaches who worked for me in the past who were at LSU, they just really stood up for him, told me how hard he played and how much he loved to practice, was a worker,” Kubiak said. “When you’re going through those evaluations, you’re trusting some people that you maybe spent some time with that can help you in your evaluation process. Really, it’s mostly film for us coaches and a little bit personality we get to see at Indianapolis. There’s no substitute for loving to play, and this kid loves to play.”
Since the moment Jefferson arrived, he followed around Adam Thielen like a kid with his older brother. He wanted to improve releases, routes and his understanding of X’s and O’s. In turn, Thielen has attempted to learn Jefferson’s dance, “The Griddy.”
Edholm remembers noticing on film that Jefferson did the little things that you don’t always expect from a young receiver like blocking people downfield in blowout games against inferior competition.
“He played full-tilt and that’s what you loved about him,” Edholm said. “The LSU staff said that his ‘football character’ was really off the charts.”
The class
It has to be said: Even though Jefferson has emerged as the clear-cut best receiver in the draft class this year, the NFL wasn’t exactly braindead when it came to the other receivers that were picked and the draft analysts weren’t completely out of their minds.
Henry Ruggs, who went first off the board, averages nearly 20 yards per reception this year for the Raiders. Alabama standout Jerry Jeudy has 594 yards despite poor QB play in Denver. CeeDee Lamb is two catches behind Jefferson and he’s had Andy Dalton, Ben DiNucci and Garrett Gilbert playing quarterback.
The one that may go down as an incredible miscue is the Eagles selecting Jalen Reagor, who has just 20 receptions. But we’re far from knowing for certain.
Nobody had Jefferson as a seventh-rounder. They just weren’t sure how good he can be.
Of course, it hasn’t taken him long to prove that he probably shouldn’t have been the fifth guy taken. And when he was asked about what it’s been like to prove all the pre-draft criticisms wrong, he had two words for that:
“Love it.”
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