Justin Jefferson is a liar. Not in a nefarious way, mind you. In his case, Jefferson’s knack for deception is actually a virtue. Playing receiver is a study in trickery, and few are better at hoodwinking their opponents than the Vikings’ second-year star.
“I think that’s what makes it so difficult for guys to get a bead on him,” said Vikings cornerback Patrick Peterson. “Because his body can lie to you.”
Advertisement
As a rookie in 2020, Jefferson posted one of the best debut seasons for any receiver in NFL history. The Vikings’ first-round pick finished his rookie year with 1,400 receiving yards, the most for any receiver since the NFL-AFL merger and 87 more yards than Minnesota legend Randy Moss totaled in his first year. Jefferson wasn’t just the most productive rookie receiver in modern history, he was also one of the most efficient pass catchers in the entire league. Jefferson ranked third league-wide in receiving yards, and only Davante Adams (2.96) finished ahead of Jefferson (2.66) in PFF’s yards per route run metric.
Through five games this season, Jefferson has picked up right where he left off. He currently ranks sixth in the NFL with 426 receiving yards and has continued to torment opposing corners.
Jefferson has accomplished all of this as the fifth receiver drafted in a loaded 2020 class. Understanding what makes him such a threat can be tough to grasp at first. At 6-foot-1 and around 200 pounds, Jefferson isn’t particularly big. After running a 4.43 in the 40, he isn’t particularly fast either. Jefferson excels thanks to a rare understanding of both the position and how to use his unique body type to flummox corners. He’s unlike any other pass catcher in football, and defenses still aren’t sure what to do about it.
“A lot of people see my length, and they don’t think that I’m a very twitchy receiver, or that I’m able to be explosive,” Jefferson said. “To be explosive and have this type of body, it kind of gives me an advantage.”
Keenan McCardell first saw Jefferson up-close during the 2020 combine in Indianapolis. The longtime NFL wideout and current Vikings receivers coach was then serving in the same position for the Jaguars, and when he saw Jefferson in person, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “I just started laughing and said, ‘That’s Jalen Ramsey playing wide receiver,’” said McCardell. “They have the same type of body.”
Advertisement
Jefferson and Ramsey have almost identical measurements (6-foot-1, 200 pounds and change), but it’s the way they’re built that stands out. They don’t tower over opponents, but each has the limbs of a person several inches taller. Jefferson’s arms are 33 inches long, which ranks in the 78th percentile among receivers. And his legs might be even less proportionate to the rest of his frame. While meeting at the Vikings facility during training camp this summer, I asked Jefferson to stand next to me, just as a point of comparison. I’m about 5-foot-11, which means Jefferson only has me by about two inches. But his hip bone sits a good four to five inches higher than mine.
Jefferson’s unique proportions give him a distinct advantage as a receiver, even against the league’s most seasoned cornerbacks. Peterson says that he typically focuses on the lower half of a receiver’s body when in coverage. But against Jefferson, that approach can occasionally backfire. Because his legs are so long, the jumble of limbs can cause a corner to expect a movement one way only for Jefferson to break in the other direction. “He has route-running skills like Keenan Allen,” Peterson said. “If you watch the two, they’re very, very similar. They’re able to sell certain things where they can be long one way and then come back the other way. They’re definitely using (their length) to their advantage.”
It took time for Jefferson to harness that length as a young player. He moved from quarterback to wide receiver during his freshman season at Destrehan High School in Louisiana. The transition was anything but smooth. “My first time running routes, it was terrible,” Jefferson said. “When I switched over to receiver, I really didn’t know much about it. I didn’t know how to get off the line. I didn’t know how to run routes.”
To jump-start his education, Jefferson started studying older receivers he admired and imitating their movements in the backyard. At the time, nearby LSU had a pair of star receivers named Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry, who both provided plenty of material. Jefferson’s first year at receiver also coincided with Allen’s rookie year in San Diego, which served as a useful manual for a young player just getting started. “I needed to learn how to control my body,” Jefferson said. “The way I do now, the way I wiggle, I had to learn how to do that.”
Jefferson eventually followed Beckham and Landry to LSU, and after a solid sophomore season in 2018, broke out in a big way for the Tigers’ historically dominant 2019 national championship team. That year, Jefferson moved to the slot in passing game coordinator Joe Brady’s wide-open offense. The new role and the routes that Jefferson was asked to run from that alignment altered the way he understood the mechanics of defensive coverages.
Advertisement
Option routes — or Lucys, as they were called at LSU — were a staple of the passing game that Brady borrowed from Sean Payton’s offense in New Orleans. To run them properly, Jefferson needed to understand every aspect of a defense’s structure. “You have to know if they’re in man, zone, who’s coming down, who’s blitzing,” Jefferson said. “At LSU, we worked them a lot. Me being able to have an option route — being able to go outside, inside, sit down in zone. I started learning there, and ever since then, I’ve been killing it on option routes.”
Armed with a more complete understanding of defenses, Jefferson learned how to weaponize his length in ways that he never could before, and that has translated to his role as a primarily outside receiver in the NFL.
There are a few different ways that Jefferson consistently uses his leggy frame to dupe opposing corners. The first is with the series of quick movements at the line of scrimmage that comprise Jefferson’s array of releases. Release plans are where a receiver’s creativity can really shine, and Jefferson draws inspiration from some surprising places. Receivers often cite basketball crossovers as a useful comparison to certain releases, and Jefferson is no different. But he takes his cross-sport influences a step further. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” Jefferson said. “I kind of use basketball, I use soccer, I use all these different sports into one.”
Wait … soccer? “Yeah, soccer is just the movement of the ball,” Jefferson said. “If I’m running like an out route. Here, let me just show you …”
Jefferson stands up from a stone bench outside the Vikings’ practice facility and starts mimicking movements fit more for the Premier League than an NFL Sunday. Wearing a pair of Gucci flip-flops, he lifts his right foot in the air, swirls it over an imaginary ball, and puts it down in virtually the same spot. “Just a little eye candy,” Jefferson explains.
For someone with Jefferson’s length, a little eye candy can accomplish a lot. Take this long reception from the Vikings’ Week 4 loss to Cleveland earlier this month. Working against standout corner Denzel Ward, Jefferson lets his left foot hang in the air for just a moment before getting his cleats back in the ground and exploding outside on a fade. That subtle movement lures Ward into slowing down just enough to give Jefferson the half step he needs to get on top and haul in a long catch during a crucial late-game drive. Jefferson never played soccer as a kid, but he has been known to hop into pickup games at his local park.
Along with the advantage at the line of scrimmage, Jefferson’s long legs also give him an edge down the field. His tape is littered with examples of defensive backs getting surprised about how much space Jefferson eats up in a short amount of time. His strides are much longer than anyone would assume for someone his height, and that disconnect leads to cornerbacks routinely misjudging how fast he’ll be on them.
Advertisement
Look at this example from Minnesota’s win over the Panthers in Week 12 of the 2020 season. The Carolina corner is giving him about nine yards of space to start the play, but it takes only five steps for Jefferson to erase that cushion and get in position to break inside. As Jefferson noted, his condensed split also added another layer of difficulty for the corner. With so much space to work outside, any route may be on the table. Combined with how fast Jefferson chews up the grass in front of him, the corner’s mind is spinning from the start.
“He has to worry about the corner, he has to worry about the out route, he has to worry about the post,” Jefferson said. “He has to worry about so many things. If I just get to him faster than he thinks I can get to him, his mind is gonna be racing everywhere. And he’s gonna be late reacting to what I’m actually doing.”
The deceiving speed at which Jefferson chews up grass can startle cornerbacks, but his decisiveness in those moments is what leaves them truly helpless. As Peterson points out, unlike many receivers, Jefferson rarely chops his fit into breaks. His legs might resemble those of a 6-foot-4 wideout, but his relatively compact overall frame allows him to redirect without throttling down the way a taller receiver might have to. For cornerbacks that have to predict where Jefferson is going and when, that’s a frightening combination. “He’s always stepping into (his break),” Peterson said. “That’s another hard thing to read about him because you really never know when he’s breaking. You have to trust your instincts.”
The magic act that Jefferson can perform with legs is already challenging enough for most corners. But when he mixes in some other sneaky tricks with the rest of his body? That’s when the nightmare fuel comes.
McCardell noticed it right away when he started working with Jefferson this past spring. The same way that Jefferson’s legs can lie to defenders, so can his arms and shoulders. McCardell uses the word “slithery,” an apt descriptor for the slick, slippery movements Jefferson uses to create the last vital bit of separation.
In the final moment before completing a catch, Jefferson has a special talent for dipping around or swimming through a cornerback’s hands at exactly the right moment. “As you complete the move, you’ve got to be able to get out of it without being touched by the defender,” McCardell said. “And he has a knack for that.”
Take this catch from Minnesota’s win over Detroit earlier this month. At the snap, Jefferson hesitates for just a second before accelerating on a vertical route. Lions second-year corner Amani Oruwariye maintains fairly sticky coverage about 12 yards down the field, but as the ball hangs in the air, Jefferson dips from outside Oruwariye’s frame back inside and hauls in a 35-yard reception.
Advertisement
When he tries to describe this aspect to his repertoire, Jefferson admits it’s hard to explain. That wiggle — the slither — comes more from feel than from practice. When using his upper body to accentuate the deception on a given route, the goal is to play low enough to stay explosive out of his break but high enough to be “loosey” with it, as he says.
This play from last season’s win over the Jaguars is a useful example. Lined up wide to the right in the high red zone, Jefferson immediately sells an over route across the field. After committing hard to the route until the hashmark, Jefferson uses a quick turn of his head and shoulders to the quarterback to one final piece of false information before redirecting back to the corner. He’s upright enough to mislead with his shoulders but drops his hips efficiently enough to quickly accelerate in the opposite direction.
“We’d been play action, running overs the whole game,” Jefferson said. “So I wanted to make it look the same. I beat him on a release, put it over. But the eyes give it away. The eyes make the DB jump the route. So me giving the eyes, it makes him kinda undercut me. And that last head turn, that’s gonna allow me to go back on top of him.”
Listening to Jefferson articulate his plans on specific plays gives a window into his advanced understanding of the position, only a couple of months from his 22nd birthday. In August, Jefferson said his goals for this season were to further develop a Davante Adams-like bag of releases, which he has already put on display in the first month of the season. He has also honed his ability to threaten receivers vertically off the snap — ”with hella speed,” as Jefferson puts it — to give him even more room to work.
“If you press him vertically, then you get to your break point, you can do whatever you want, because now you got him,” McCardell said. “His fear is the go ball and now everything underneath is what you want. Then, like we always say in my room, ‘If they fear your go ball, your underneath game you should eat.’”
Stoking that fear in a cornerback is predicated on confidence, an assertiveness off the line that only grows as a receiver gets a better handle on his game. Now 20 starts into his NFL career, Jefferson has started to believe that he can put every opposing defensive back on a string, no matter how they play him. “If they’re off and have me in man, I feel like I’m gonna win a majority of the time,” Jefferson said. “If they’re playing me more press, of course I have to work them more, but I feel like I’m gonna win regardless.”
For someone like McCardell, who has dedicated more than two decades to playing and studying the position, it’s hard to spend time around Jefferson and not constantly grin. His unique build and advanced sense for the position have made him arguably the best young receiver in the entire NFL. And this is only the beginning.
“You see him run routes and you’re like, “That guy right there has a true feel for playing the position,’” McCardell said. “It makes you smile.”
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kXFvcWhibXxzfJFqZmpoX2aBcLbUrKuipl2fsqeyxKuqqKZdnsBuwc2loKSdXZa7unnOrZ%2Beql2lrrS%2FjJyYrZuYmr9utc1mnainpJeurbiO