Justin Jefferson has 23 catches for 302 yards and three touchdowns this season, and the Minnesota Vikings have not lost a game. Asked on Wednesday whether it felt strange to sit so far down the receiving lists while his team is 6-0, the Vikings star said he would take the wins. “Trust me, I definitely would love the production. I would love to be at the top of all of those categories,” Jefferson said. “But we’re winning games, and what we’re doing right now is working.”
Minnesota is the NFL’s only unbeaten team, and it has got there mostly on defense. The Vikings have allowed 74 points in six games, 12.3 a game and the fewest in the league, while scoring 20.8 a game. Jefferson missed the Week 4 win over Miami, and he has five catches or fewer in four of his five games. In Sunday’s 16-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts he caught four of seven targets for 44 yards. The Vikings play at the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
“Definitely yards being left out there”
Jefferson agreed with the coaches’ review of the Colts game. “Yeah, it was definitely opportunities, definitely yards being left out there for sure,” he said, calling it part of the “growing pains of just trying to figure out the offense and getting on the same page.” When he looks at the film, he said, “you see us running open and you see the plays that could be made out there. We just got to finish those plays.”
He said the numbers depend on how defenses play him and on all 11 players doing their jobs, and he pointed to the time he lost. “There’s a lot of things that go into that production level. And also, I pretty much missed two games also this year,” Jefferson said. “So you got to weigh in that as well.”
He also said he is not going to the coaches to ask for more targets. “It’s just all about executing our plays,” he said. With the team winning, “you kind of got to take initiative in and just kind of sit back and just, you know, play my role and be there whenever they need to be, and whenever those plays do come to me, make the most of them.”
“We can’t rely on the defense every single game”
Jefferson called the offense “very fortunate” to have a defense that buys it time. “We’re definitely lucky to have a defense like that to cause pressures and cause turnovers, to give us the ball back and give us that short field,” he said. “It’s definitely tough on the offensive side not being able to finish some drives with touchdowns instead of three points. We have a great kicker in Will,” he added, meaning Will Reichard, who “kind of bails us out sometimes as well.”
He did not put the job on his own shoulders. “I kind of put it on everybody’s shoulders. I put it on the whole entire offense to come prepared,” Jefferson said. “We feel like we have the guys in that room to make the plays and be one of the best offenses in the league.” He added: “We can’t rely on the defense every single game. The offense got to come prepared and come ready to play and score points. At the end of the day, that’s what we got to do. We got to help the defense out sometimes.”
Defenses have kept two safeties deep against him, and Jefferson said that will not change until the offense makes it change. “I would hope that I got a little less of the two highs and safety help,” he said, “but we got to kind of do better as an offense, as finishing drives, scoring points, for the defense to kind of switch it up a little bit.”
“It’s definitely a joy to watch”
Jefferson said the Vikings’ defense causes the offense the most trouble in practice with its pressures, and he enjoys watching it on Sundays. “They’re a tight-knit group. They’re all bonded together. They all play for one another, and they are all out there having fun playing with each other,” he said. “It’s definitely a joy to watch. It’s definitely entertaining seeing all the amount of interceptions, the amount of turnovers that they’re getting us the ball. We just got to do a better job on the offensive side.”
The 4-2 Lions host the Vikings on Sunday, November 1, at 1:00 p.m. ET, which is 8:00 p.m. in Cairo.
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