By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — When it comes to any art form, what makes it so special is the amount of time and effort that goes into producing a masterpiece.
In the case of the Minnesota Vikings’ greatest route-running artist, fans see Justin Jefferson play 17 times per year and catch an average of 105 passes for 1,534 yards throughout those contests but they do not see the thousands of times Keenan McCardell drills him on route details during practice. Nobody sees the meetings day after day in the receiver room or hears the hundreds of conversations about playing the position or their talks about life at the top.
What folks outside the Vikings’ building may not realize is how important McCardell has been to Jefferson’s growth and success in the past, battling through difficult times last year and taking another step in 2026.
On the Vikings’ second-to-last day of training camp, McCardell sat down with Purple Insider to talk about the journey coaching Jefferson and his messages to the superstar receiver through tough moments in 2025 and his aspirations for 2026.
When McCardell arrived in Eagan in 2021 to coach under Mike Zimmer, he knew what he was inheriting. Not only had he watched from afar as a receivers coach for the Jaguars as Jefferson caught 88 passes for 1,400 yards and seven touchdowns as a rookie in 2020, he had studied the former LSU wide receiver closely in college during the Tigers’ national championship run with Joe Burrow at the helm.
“When I got here he was a young, energetic playmaker that we all knew had the talent to be something special,” McCardell said. “I knew it in the draft when I was in Jacksonville, we actually thought we were going to draft him. When I got here, I was itching to get my hands on him, because I saw it in all his pre-draft stuff, his workouts.”
(Side note: The Jaguars took CJ Henderson and K’lavon Chaisson instead of Jefferson. Oops).
Since Jefferson had already proven that he could be a Pro Bowl weapon for the Vikings, McCardell’s job wasn’t to teach him how to play wide receiver, it was to sand down the rough edges and refine his game to become a more complete player.
“He was already a really good route runner, but I wanted to polish it up a lot more to let him understand that if you are a good route runner, no matter how fast you are, if you can create separation with your footwork and your route running, you are going to play in this league a long time,” McCardell said. “When you master it, that’s when you become an elite receiver. The art of playing the receiver spot is being able to create separation against any kind of defense.”
How can you improve the route running of a guy who went for seven catches and 175 yards in his debut as a starter?
One thing McCardell mentioned was getting in and out of breaks. For great receivers, the magic happens when they reach the point in the route where they are going to either stop, break inside, break outside or head at a 45-degree angle toward the sideline or middle of the field. If a receiver hits those breaks at a high speed, it’s very difficult to cover and if each different break looks the same in the deceleration and acceleration, it’s impossible to cover.
There was something else that McCardell spotted on tape that he wanted to emphasize: Effort.
No, McCardell did not have to teach Jefferson to try hard. He was always high motor. For every coaching point, we’re talking about the differences between good and gold-jacket. What he wanted to see out of Jefferson was the exact same effort on plays where he knew he wasn’t getting the ball as plays that he was getting the ball.
“You must play hard every single time for your opponent to really respect you,” McCardell said. “You don’t want to be the superstar receiver that only plays when the ball is coming to you. It will make your job a lot easier if you play that way, because if you don’t play hard then people know the ball isn’t coming to you. I wanted him to continue to do that.”
Imagine the difference in stress for the opposing cornerback if he has to focus on every single down rather than the dozen per game where the receiver knows he could be targeted.
In 2021, with McCardell in his corner, Jefferson took another step forward. He caught 108 passes for 1,616 yards, scored 10 touchdowns and produced 75 first downs.
What McCardell realized about the star wide receiver is that he was confident but not arrogant. He respected his coach’s acumen and took heed to his teaching from the start.
“He wanted to learn,” McCardell said. “He was willing to learn. It was never hype, it was always humble. He was very humble about learning. He really responded to what I what I was telling him about how he could be even better — and he always wants to be better.”
After the 2021 season, the Vikings fired Zimmer and McCardell’s job was in question. When Kevin O’Connell was hired, Jefferson called the new head coach and requested that McCardell be kept on as the wide receivers coach.
“That meant a lot,” McCardell said. “KO could have gone in a different direction. Jets’ word meant a lot for [O’Connell]. He knew that I was really teaching [Jefferson], and I think they all realized that once he got there, I was teaching him how to become the best.”
McCardell continued to add layers to his coaching as O’Connell arrived with a complex system for wide receivers.
The biggest emphasis was pushing the slider of Jefferson’s football IQ all the way to 100. After two years of total dominance, he was seeing every coverage in the book on a weekly basis.
“As the years went by, things got different for him and now everybody’s just trying to gameplan for you,” McCardell said. “Now you gotta get smarter and understand how defensive coordinators are trying to play you. What is he trying to take away from you? [Jefferson] became more of a student of the game as the years went by. First couple years, it was really off natural talent and understanding fundamentals of running routes. As he got older, he was like, ‘man, these guys are putting their hands on me every time, anywhere I go, I’m inside, I’m outside, they’re trying to grab me, push me around, beat me up.’ You gotta start to learn where to go, and how to get there. He started to understand that.”
In 2022, the physical skill, thousands of hours of technical polishing and X’s and O’s study began to peak for Jefferson. In his first year with KOC, the new head coach had zero regrets about keeping on McCardell as Jefferson’s star ascended to a league-leading 128 receptions for 1,809 yards, All-Pro and Offensive Player of the Year.
With great production came great expectations and Jefferson continued to meet them in 2023 and 2024. While he dealt with a hamstring injury, he still cleared 1,000 yards in just nine games in ‘23 and grabbed 103 passes for 1,533 yards in ‘24.
At that point, McCardell didn’t need to do any more refining. When Jefferson would make a mistake on a route detail, he would just say to his receivers coach, “yeah, I know.”
When Jefferson held his wide receivers camp, McCardell could hear his words coming out of the receiver’s mouth.
“He’s teaching like I was teaching,” McCardell said. “I just laugh. I know he knows it, and it’s fun, man.”
As he grew up, Jefferson and McCardell got closer and closer.
“He’s like my kid, to be honest with you, he’s a part of my family,” McCardell said. “If he needs some advice, he can call me. He has his mom and dad and I don’t step on toes, because his mom and dad are great human beings. They raised him right.”
McCardell continued…
“We might just be sitting up there before a meeting and talking about some stuff and he might ask me something, I’ll give my answer like, being a mentor and stuff like that. Our relationship is, it’s been great the whole time, and just getting closer and closer being around each other all the time, you know? He invites us over, invites the kids to go to certain things and stuff like that. So it’s just like family.”
In 2025, Jefferson needed McCardell’s mentorship as much as his weekly gameplans and route detail reminders.
For the first time in his entire career, he was struggling to put up numbers. Jefferson went 11 straight weeks in 2025 without reaching 100 yards and had a three-week stretch where he only caught six passes for a total of 37 yards.
Normally it hadn’t mattered who was playing quarterback. He had tremendous chemistry and trust with Kirk Cousins and then Nick Mullens threw it his way over and over in 2023 and Sam Darnold was built in a lab to push the ball downfield to Jefferson. Even when Carson Wentz was in, he was on a 115-catch pace.
But with JJ McCarthy, it never clicked. He dropped more passes than we would expect and had more inaccurate throws his way than ever before.
This is where McCardell’s experience was extra helpful. He played in the NFL from 1992 to 2007 and saw every phase of the league that a person could see. He was a special teamer at one point and a superstar at another. He played on a 5-11 Browns team where everything fell apart and a Super Bowl champion team in Tampa Bay where everything went right.
The 56-year-old coach is aware what often happens with receivers under circumstances such as this.
“We had some good hard conversations last year. Some guys would have — I know they would have blown up,” McCardell said. “I played with some guys that would have blown up and would have the right to blow up. But it ain’t about that. You have a C on your chest. It’s about the way you carry yourself. Guys look up to you. Guys understand that if Jets is going this way then we are going this way.”
McCardell is particularly proud of Jefferson being named the Media Good Guy for 2025 — an award that honors Korey Stringer and is given to the player who best represents the team in the media.
“I’ve been down this road before, so I can kind of, like, guide him away from some of the stuff that people are trying to run him into,” McCardell said. “Trying to get him to say things and this, that and the other thing. The biggest thing about that, I always stress, it’s team first. It’s your family name on your back and the Minnesota Vikings.”
This summer, it appears Jefferson has put the struggles of last season behind him. He and new quarterback Kyler Murray have been connecting repeatedly downfield, including hitting home run touchdowns in the joint practices and the team scrimmage on the final day of camp.
The emphasis for McCardell to Jefferson this year is about opportunities. He believes that the Vikings’ emphasis on the run game and addition of Jauan Jennings as the No. 3 wide receiver will give Jefferson more chances to see one-on-one coverage.
“Each year teams play him differently,” McCardell said. “So it’s about recognizing when you have single coverage and take advantage of it. You’re hoping that they come out and play you in single coverage but go out onto the field expecting to get doubled. As soon as you survey the defense and see single high [safety], then it’s, ‘now I have to win one-on-one.’ That’s the type of thing he’s gotten a lot better at and I want it to be like clockwork.”
McCardell remembers during his career joking around with Fred Taylor about getting the double coverage off he and Jimmy Smith and Taylor telling him to get the eight men out of the box. The Vikings want to create a similar conflict for teams this year.
One thing McCardell is keeping in the front of his mind as he works with Jefferson to get back to his typical 100-catch, 1,500-yard type seasons is how important everyone else is to that process. If teams have to pay attention to Jennings and Jordan Addison and depth players like Myles Price and Tai Felton, the job becomes easier for the No. 1 guy. His message to the other receivers: Have the same mindset as Jefferson.
“I think my biggest thing is to make sure the people around him are playing at his level,” McCardell said. “You gotta have the same type of mindset as Jets. You gotta be that dude, be that superstar, right? Because every time you step on that football field, you have to be, you have to think that way, be that way.”
During our conversation, McCardell never stopped smiling. He described his time coaching the Vikings as “having a ball” and he said that he tells his players that he wants to see smiles on their faces as they play the game because beating the guy across from you is fun.
But nobody should mistake McCardell’s personal connections with his players and his pure joy for football as a calm Sunday gathering around the camp fire. The Super Bowl champion receiver, who had more receiving yards in his career than Chad Johnson, DeSean Jackson, Joey Galloway, Keyshawn Johnson, AJ Green and Gary Clark, is burning to win again.
“We’ve had a lot of success but not the success that we’re chasing yet,” McCardell said. “We want our hoist that trophy up. You go through some things, you learn, you grow and each year to get a chance to go after it.”
As you watch Justin Jefferson go after it this year, keep in mind that his coach is right there with him every catch of the way.
How cool is it that a 90s NFL legend has been teaching a new legend? Pumped to see the next steps Jefferson might be able to take this season.
Great article Matthew and supports what I have always said about McCardell. I thought he was a great addition to the coaching staff when he came here and he has done nothing but reinforce that feeling. We have a great WR corp because of the guys talents and McCardell’s coaching - a great combination!