Justin Jefferson is affordable, not replaceable: A story in five charts

A data-driven reminder that it is a good idea to extend Jefferson

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By Matthew Coller

There are so many good wide receivers these days, doesn’t that make Justin Jefferson replaceable?

That question seems to pop up every time someone is talking about the Minnesota Vikings negotiating a long-term contract extension with their All-Pro wide receiver.

On some levels in makes sense. The Kansas City Chiefs traded superstar Tyreek Hill and then won the next two Super Bowls and we saw 27 receivers pick up over 1,000 yards last season. But it should be mentioned that the Dolphins offense went from ranking 25th in yards and 22nd in points before they acquired Hill to No. 2 in points and No. 1 in yards last season. More importantly, we need to keep in mind that not all wide receivers with good fantasy stats are created equal.

Let’s take a look at what the data says about how Jefferson impacts the Vikings offense versus other wide receivers and how the Vikings can work around a large contract by using some visual aids….

We start off with this, from Football Insights on Twitter. This is a chart of PFF data showing NFL wide receiver performance against man and zone coverage since 2014 in terms of yards per route run.

Jefferson isn’t just in rare air, he’s in his own air. The only players close to performing at his level against both types of coverages are Julio Jones, Tyreek Hill and Antonio Brown. Zone coverage has slightly slowed down receivers like AJ Brown, Cooper Kupp, CeeDee Lamb and Ja’Marr Chase and man coverage has kept Deebo Samuel, Jaylen Waddle and Amon-Ra St. Brown from his level.

It shouldn’t just be notable that Jefferson is head of all the other great wide receivers. Look at the good receivers. Garrett Wilson, Brandon Aiyuk, Mike Evans, Stefon Diggs, DK Metcalf, Tee Higgins.

A new analytics company, Field Vision Sports, recently started putting out data showing how players performed against specific coverages. When we dive deeper, it becomes clearer that there is no answer to the NFL’s top receiver. When opponents played the most common coverages, cover-1, cover-2 and cover-3 during his fully-healthy 2022 season, Jefferson ranked at the top of the league against all of them.

It’s hard to put a value on Vikings quarterbacks having the ability to target Jefferson against any coverage. Here’s what we can say: Jefferson has a sample size of targets that are equal to around one full season of throws from a quarterback with 558 total passes his way over the last four years. On those throws, per PFF, Vikings QBs have 5,899 yards (10.5 yards per attempt), 30 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and a 112.1 quarterback rating.

Since 2020 there have only been 12 receivers targeted more than 500 times in the NFL and Jefferson ranks No. 1 among them in yards per target by 0.7 yards over the next best (AJ Brown). He is a full yard better per target than CeeDee Lamb and Cooper Kupp.

If Jefferson had one year under his belt as being super effective against all defensive plans then we might wonder if defenses would eventually figure him out. But his consistency has been nearly unparalleled. Here are his PFF grades over his first four seasons in the NFL:

You are wondering: How many receivers have four straight years of 90-plus PFF grades? Julio Jones. That’s the list. Calvin Johnson if we round up from 89.9. Davante Adams had three such seasons in a row. Antonio Brown had three 90-plus seasons and an 89.1 mixed in. DeAndre Hopkins had a run with three out of four years.

That type of consistency isn’t just hard to replace, it’s nearly impossible to replace.

But how much is it really worth?

We like to use yearly salaries because they are much easier to process than salary cap numbers. For example, AJ Brown makes $32 million per year, making him the highest paid receiver in the NFL. Gotcha. Brown signed a deal in 2022 for four years, $100 million but recently extended his contract only two years into the deal. Brown’s cap hits since joining the Eagles have been $8.3 million and $11.8 million, and for the next two years they will be $17.6 million and $23.5 million. None of those numbers approach his per-year salary.