Oct. 11—Second-year receiver Justin Jefferson was unguardable throughout the first half of the Vikings’ 19-17 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday. He had five catches for 104 yards before halftime and looked like he had a legitimate chance to break Sammy White’s franchise record of 210 receiving yards in a game.
Then the Vikings pretty much stopped throwing to Jefferson. He finished the game with seven catches for 124 yards.
Why did the Vikings stop throwing to their best offensive player? Well, as quarterback Kirk Cousins explained, the Lions were doing everything in their power to take Jefferson out of play in the second half.
“They played a lot of two-deep and clouded Justin,” Cousins said. “It’s essentially double coverage.”
In those moment, Cousins checked down to running back Alexander Mattison a few times, as well as fellow receiver K.J. Osborn.
As for Jefferson, he simply tried not to get frustrated. He understood it was nothing personal.
“You just move on to the next play,” he said. “You’re not going to get every single ball, open or not. You’ve just got to keep moving and keep playing. I know the ball is going to come to me eventually.”
Still, it’s hard not to question some of the conservative play calls form offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. Like right before halftime when the the Vikings opted to run twice up the middle rather than try to score points.
“The coaches are going to decide what to do and we’re going to go with it,” Cousins said. “We trust them, and that’s their call.”
There was also the time late in the game when the Vikings opted to run Mattison up the middle on third down rather than throw to Jefferson or fellow star receiver Adam Thielen on the outside.
Though the run play kept the clock running, it offered very little chance of picking up the first down compared to a pass play. To make matters worse, Mattison fumbled, nearly costing the Vikings the game.
Did that decision bother Jefferson and Thielen?
“I’ll say this,” Thielen said. “Do we want the ball in our hands to end the game? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, that’s not our job. Our job is to make the play when it’s there. We have a lot of faith in our offensive coaches. They do a heck of a job game-planning and doing their job. And they are very critical of themselves. At the end of the day, like I said before, we’ve got to make plays work. It doesn’t matter what’s called, we’ve got to make it work.”
That’s exactly what the offense did on the final drive. While the ball was thrown to Thielen, not Jefferson, the end result is the only thing that mattered to either player.
“If the game is in our hands, then we’re going to get the job done,” Jefferson said. “We didn’t like the way the game turned out. We felt like we left some plays out there. But it is what it is. Just look into film and correct our mistakes.”