Justin Jefferson signs contract, solidifying him as franchise centerpiece

Vikings retain their elite receiver's services through 2028 to the tune of $140 million

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By Matthew Coller

It’s a bad day for clickbait but a great day for Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings.

After negotiating on and off for the last year, which came along with plenty of typical NFL rumor “buzz,” the Vikings and Jefferson agreed to a four-year extension worth $140 million with $110 million in total guarantees and $88.7 million due at signing, making him the highest paid receiver in the NFL.

In a video released on Jefferson’s Instagram, he said: “This is the start of it. We ain’t done yet. Just wait.”

OverTheCap.com estimates that Jefferson’s cap hits will be $8.6 million for 2024, $15.1 million in 2025 before increasing to $38.9 million in 2026 and $43.4 in 2027 and $47.5 in 2028. However, after 2025 there will be opportunities to restructure the deal to lower the cap hit and eventually extend Jefferson again as we saw with AJ Brown this offseason in Philadelphia.

The deal has meaning on several levels. For starters, Jefferson’s deal puts him in a new echelon for wide receivers. His average annual value beats out Brown by $3 million and his guaranteed dollars top Brown’s numbers significantly. If we look at his average annual value versus the 2024 salary cap, only DeAndre Hopkins reached this level (13.7%) in 2020. Cooper Kupp and AJ Brown were in the ballpark just shy of 13%.

Jefferson’s production warrants the dollar figures considering he has more yardage through the first 60 games of his career than any other receiver in NFL history and only Tyreek Hill has more yards since Jefferson was selected in the first round by the Vikings in 2020.

The impact of top-notch receivers on quarterback play is undeniable and that certainly applies to Jefferson’s impact on Kirk Cousins during the first stanza of his career. When targeting Jefferson, Vikings quarterbacks had a 112.1 QB rating, which was bolstered by him catching more than 50% of potential contested catches and grabbing around 70% of targets overall — a stat that is more impressive when you factor his 12.2 average depth of target.

Those numbers factor into the confidence that the Vikings can give first-round quarterback JJ McCarthy every opportunity to succeed. Putting Jefferson alongside the former Michigan star QB for at least his entire rookie contract weighs the odds in his favor. In recent years we have seen young quarterbacks on rookie deals thrive with top-notch receivers around them, particularly Jalen Hurts following the Eagles’ acquisition of Brown and Brock Purdy in San Francisco with star Deebo Samuel.

Ideally McCarthy and Jefferson will have an opportunity to build chemistry together within Kevin O’Connell’s offense over the next few seasons. Getting the contract done now allows for that process to begin with mandatory minicamp, which takes place this week at TCO Performance Center.

Jefferson’s contract signifies the final step of the “competitive rebuild” for general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. When Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell were hired, the team’s plan was to overhaul the roster while remaining in the hunt, improve their salary cap situation and eventually land the quarterback of the future to pair with their group of high quality weapons. They have done all that.

In the 2023 offseason they moved on from veteran players like Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, Patrick Peterson and Eric Kendricks to make way for a new wave of players like Jordan Addison, Ivan Pace Jr. and Josh Metellus and then spent a chunk of the cap space this offseason filling out the roster with pass rushers Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel. Allowing Kirk Cousins to leave for Atlanta in free agency opened up the space to make a Jefferson extension viable within the context of the remainder of the roster.

Even with Jefferson’s new contract the Vikings will still be in position to spend in free agency next year with the aim of lining up their overall roster strength with McCarthy’s development. Teams like the 2018 Rams, 2021 Bengals, 2022 Eagles and 2023 49ers have reached the Super Bowl through similarly building around rookie QB contracts and strong top-to-bottom rosters.

From a planning an execution perspective, the Vikings have checked off all of the boxes with Jefferson’s deal being the final one for right now. But that doesn’t mean we can declare the mission as being accomplished. Over the first four years of his career, the Vikings won zero playoff games with Jefferson. There were different reasons for each failure to go deep in the postseasons — none of which had anything to do with Jefferson’s performance — but the next step is harder than the last. It’s easier to tear down and get younger than it is to put the final pieces on a roster to create a Super Bowl contender. There is no question that a contract of Jefferson’s magnitude makes that trickier than when he was on a rookie contract. What happens going forward will be the true test of Jefferson and the plan.

Whether that comes to fruition will take several years to find out. From a here-and-now perspective, the Vikings were able to retain one of the best players in the entire NFL for the next half decade. In the past there have been several examples of elite receivers becoming disgruntled and exiting via trade, including Randy Moss, Percy Harvin and Stefon Diggs. The Jefferson contract signifies that he won’t be added to that list any time soon and his desire is to be a massive part of the team taking the step from Point A to Point B.

The deal also puts to bed any drama or distractions. While this season might be viewed as a transition between the old and the new, it still comes along with expectations. Owner Mark Wilf said at the owners meetings that he still expects the team to be in the playoff race and that they won’t adjust expectations because the team has a lot of new faces. With that in mind, the players and coaches can go to work without questions about Jefferson’s contract or commitment long term. They won’t have to be concerned with rumors or bogus hearsay, rather the Vikings can step on the field in training camp with their franchise players leading the way.

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