By Matthew Coller
Detroit, Mich. — In the moments following the Minnesota Vikings’ loss to the Detroit Lions, Justin Jefferson slammed his Halloween mask into his bag and left the locker room without a word to the media.
There is only one other time during his career that Jefferson hasn’t spoken to the media (last year vs. Seattle) and he has won the Korey Stringer Media Good Guy award twice. So if you’re wondering if this is unusual, the answer is very much yes. But in leaving without taking questions, Jefferson said everything that needed to be said.
The Vikings’ offense has been flat-out unacceptably bad and his lack of involvement is shocking. Jefferson finished the game with five catches on nine targets for 33 yards and one spectacular touchdown.
“We had some opportunities for him, there were some chances there and I thought we missed a couple of them high,” O’Connell said of Jefferson’s day. “We have to find a way to, especially on potential chances for him… kick off some momentum. He’s a great guy to do it behind and we’ll continue to find ways to get him football. But division game, these guys want to win. I don’t fault the frustration or the competitiveness in any way, shape or form.”
The offense as a whole gained 266 yards and went 3-for-11 on either third or fourth down and Kyler Murray totaled 185 yards if you include yardage lost to sacks. It’s almost hard to remember a time where Jefferson won Offensive Player of the Year or set records for the most yards ever at his age or when he was catching rockets from Sam Darnold en route to a top-10 passing game.
“It’s understood,” Murray said of Jefferson’s frustration. “He’s an all-pro, hopefully soon to be Hall of Fame type of guy when he’s done. You expect him to be frustrated when he doesn’t get the ball in games like this, in crunch time, give him opportunity. That’s understandable.”
Last year it was JJ McCarthy struggling to find him and this year it’s Murray either missing open opportunities — like a play early in the second half where the QB didn’t see him wide open on a slant route — or when he overthrew Jefferson for a key interception at the end of the half.
Jefferson’s silence makes it pretty easy to read between the lines, short and long term.
In the immediate, the Vikings are set to play the NFL’s best quarterback Josh Allen on Monday Night Football. While they are still 6-1 after the victory, there has to be a state of complete panic going into the game because another loss could start a tumble with Green Bay and San Francisco on the way.
They have to consider either starting Carson Wentz — the only QB who has been able to find Jefferson in the last 25 games — or keeping him ready in case they choose to bench Murray at some point against Buffalo.
In seven games with Wentz, Jefferson has 43 receptions for 613 yards. That’s a 17-game pace of 104 receptions for 1,489 yards. In other words: Normal Jefferson numbers.
In the bigger picture, the situation is now dire with Jefferson’s long term. He has been patient. He’s been a good soldier. He has opted to stay positive while the team is winning. But the elephant in the room is that his contract sets up to potentially demand a trade this offseason and if things keep going this way it’s very possible that he will do just that.
If we pull back for a minute and try not to be prisoners of the moment or get to far ahead of ourselves with Jefferson asking out, it’s still impossible not to wonder what in the world is causing them to struggle this much with this much talent.
Neither O’Connell or Murray had answers.
“Going to keep working for sure,” O’Connell said. “And there’s a lot of things to work towards in a positive manner because of the talent, the skill sets of all of our guys. But we’re into November now and we got to start working with the same urgency we’ve had. The preparation has been really good. Just continuing to wait for that consistent four quarters of good football and see what that looks like.”
Everyone else is waiting for that as well.
“Too many misses,” Murray said. “Too much inconsistency. We didn’t execute at a high enough level in a hostile environment on the road against a team that is, you know, they’re a good team. So credit to them for the way they played today. I thought we had our opportunities to get it done today, but we just didn’t.”
The players in the locker room who were willing to talk didn’t have answers either.
“We just gotta get it clicking,” TJ Hockenson said. “I have no waver in believing in these guys…we’ll go check the tape and come back on Wednesday.”
“We know what we can do with the talent in that room,” Jordan Addison said. “We just gotta get everybody to settle down and just make plays.”
The question now facing GM Nolan Teasley is whether he should try to fix the offense’s problems with Jonathan Taylor or Tony Pollard or another offensive lineman.
At 6-1, there’s a case to be made that a more effective run game could enhance Murray’s play significantly. He was forced to throw from third-and-long repeatedly and that’s far from his strength. Jordan Mason ran eight times for 20 yards and Murray finished as the leading rusher. At least Taylor has the ability to turn games on their head with a single handoff.
On the other hand, it’s hard to argue that any type of significant draft capital should be spent on a team that ranks at the bottom of the NFL offensively. Certainly they played well on defense for a portion of the game but true contending teams don’t consistently treat 300 yards of total offense like it’s climbing Mount Everest.
Is another handful of positive rushes really going to change their fate? That’s the toughest part about Jefferson’s walk-out. It seemed to be an acknowledgment that this train is headed the same place it always goes under KOC. They overachieve, folks wonder if they are “frauds” because of some obvious red flags and then ultimately the doubters are correct.
If there was any type of indignation toward that notion, the star receiver would have stuck around in the locker room to say so.
We keep kicking the can down the road on this Vikings offense. Maybe it will be better next week. Maybe it will improve with a different QB. Maybe it will take a step forward with a healthy lineup. Yada, yada.
The reality is that Murray is playing the worst football of his career and Jefferson’s production is the worst of his career and the run game is one of the worst in the NFL and these things have been happening for a long time.
Does that mean it’s O’Connell’s fault? He’s been calling the shots for the last 25 games of ineptitude so it’s hard not to look in that direction.
It didn’t help Murray that he called for six runs on second down and at least six yards to go, including a second-and-17 run to DeeJay Dallas, a 5-yard loss on second-and-10 that forced them into third-and-15 in Detroit territory and a 1-yard carry on second-and-6 with the game on the line in the final drive.
It also didn’t help that two of O’Connell’s biggest game-management decisions backfired. He went for fourth down early in the fourth quarter when a field goal would have brought the Vikings within a 12-10 deficit and then elected not to go for fourth with just over three minutes left, giving the Lions a chance to run out the clock (which they did).
But bad second-down runs or decisions gone wrong aside, the bottom line was that the throws on Sunday were there to be made and Murray couldn’t make it happen.
Until it does happen, the spotlight is going to get hotter and hotter on Murray and O’Connell, especially now that Jefferson has put everyone on notice with his postgame gesture.
If this offense is designed to run through Jefferson, then they need to go to a QB who knows how to get him the ball. That means going to Wentz or overpaying for Kirk. How many more times can KOC turn on the tape and watch an 8-year vet turn down open throws/windows in order to stand there and pat the ball for another 3 seconds before taking a sack or airmailing a covered receiver? He knows what he wants, and Kyler clearly ain't it. He's actually way worse than I ever thought he'd be, and I didn't think he'd be all that good.
I love KOC and think we're lucky to have him as HC, but he's the lowest common denominator in the offensive struggles. Sunday was a regression to his older style heavy games with lack of situational awareness that he's mostly outgrown - but bad habits die hard.
We know who Kyler is, and at no point in his career has he played like this, so hesitant and overthrowing balls. There is a marriage between KOC and K1 that works here very well, and it's not in a 2+ to 1 pass/run split. You can get the right looks all day but that doesn't mean exploiting a look is the only solution.
The answer is often just stacking completions, which Kyler is among the best at. Remember that, Kev? The power of completions. Let's just get rolling and stop making it look so hard.