It Won't Surprise You To Learn That Justin Jefferson Is Getting Open

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Vikings offense is struggling mightily. But just for the sake of posterity, for future football archaeologists, let’s leave a snapshot.

The Vikings rank 28th in total scoring. If you’re worried that total scoring is too crude, they rank 28th in points per drive, 30th in drives ending in a touchdown, 32nd in yards per drive, 30th in EPA/play, 31st in offensive success rate, and all of this is despite help from the 5th-best starting average field position and an historic defense. 

Kyler Murray himself ranks 27th in EPA/dropback, 24th in Big Time Throw percentage, 19th in 1st downs generated per attempt, 28th in sack percentage, 21st in yards per attempt, and 29th in pressure-to-sack percentage.

This offense stinks.

But how can that be possible? The Vikings have invested the eighth-highest $150 million in their offense, not to mention first-round picks on Jordan Addison, Christian Darrisaw, Donovan Jackson (who is injured) and more.

None of that is to mention Justin Jefferson, who is on the slowest receiving pace of his career with just 335 yards in the first 7 games. Jefferson missed most of two games with an ankle injury, but he is still behind the 5-week pace of previous seasons.

That is to say, even if he were healthy all year, he’d still be on pace to have the worst receiving season of his career. That includes his rookie year, where he famously did not start for the first two weeks.

Asking for the cause of this issue raises existential questions, the answers to which are difficult to accept. Could Jefferson be regressing? Hard to believe. Is Kyler Murray the worst quarterback that Jefferson has worked with? Hard to believe. Did Kevin O’Connell inexplicably start using Jefferson in a role that doesn’t get him the ball? Hard to believe.

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The blame has to go somewhere. If we can indeed identify a reason, is it something the Vikings can fix just a few days out from the trade deadline?

If a certain guy isn’t getting the ball enough, simply tell the guy who throws the ball, right?

Unfortunately, when Murray throws the ball to Jefferson, bad results follow.

It’s a pretty easy suggestion to tell Murray to simply stop missing, and it's not worth a whole write-up. But Jefferson, who averaged 9.2 targets per game in his career, has only 7.6 in games he finished.

So why isn’t he getting the ball more?

Murray’s vision and decision-making may be underprioritizing Jefferson. Take this play, where Kyler never looks his way, despite as much space to his side as he will ever see.

Why wouldn’t Kyler look Jefferson’s way? Both Jefferson and Addison are running deep out routes, which means Murray can pick which side he feels has a better shot. 

So which would you pick? You may be tempted to pick Jefferson no matter what, and while that’s fair, let’s pretend you have two equal receivers and instead read the coverage.

The Lions are showing a single, implying some kind of man coverage. That puts Jefferson against press coverage, and Addison against off coverage. You may prefer the free release that comes with off coverage, or the explosive potential of a deep route against press.

But this is not, in fact, man coverage. It’s just disguised to look like it. D.J. Reed backs off, Chuck Clark rotates into a Cover 2 assignment, and this plays out like non-traditional Tampa 2.

Think about the situation that puts everybody in. On Addison’s side, Reed just needs to play over the top of the route and will need to hustle to get enough depth for a Tampa 2 assignment.

On Jefferson’s side, however, Clark will have to hustle to get enough width to play Tampa 2, then be tasked with an out-breaking route from probably inside leverage.

As this plays out, Clark gets way too much depth, giving Jefferson all the room in the world to run his route. Meanwhile, Addison gets functional man coverage from Reed, who can play the only route to his side from a comfortable cushion.

Jefferson had an extremely favorable situation, whether you read that as Cover 1 pre-snap with Roger McCreary in press coverage, or Tampa 2 post-snap with Chuck Clark in a difficult rotation.

For whatever reason, Kyler chooses Addison and locks in on that first read, throwing incomplete. Of course, Reed holds Addison, draws a flag and renders the whole thing moot.

Murray has struggled to get to secondary and tertiary reads throughout his career. Kurt Warner has rightly pointed out that Murray prefers the first read and struggles to find viable options after the first read.