BREAKING NEWS : Ex-Minnesota Vikings Willie Beavers found dead in Southwest Ranches mansion at age 30
Nick, I know there have been signs of trouble. That Jefferson didn’t sign a new deal after his third year, when he was first eligible for one, isn’t the best sign. That he got hurt playing a fourth year on his rookie deal doesn’t help, either. And then there’s the reality that Kirk Cousins is now gone, Sam Darnold has arrived, and who will be playing for the Minnesota Vikings in September or October—let alone in 2025 or ’26—is still very up in the air.
That said, I know the Vikings haven’t planned to move Jefferson. It’s hard to see how they could come to a place where it would benefit them to offload a 24-year-old who’s probably among the top 10 or so players in football, regardless of position.
Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson
Jefferson could reset the receiver market with a new contract.
But to have fun with this, let’s say Minnesota is offered two first-round picks for Jefferson. That sounds like it could be good for a Vikings team that’s in the midst of a two-year roster reset, which might be accelerated by the departure of Cousins. That said, it’s likely the team you’re trading with (a contender, or one Jefferson will willingly do an extension with) is picking in the back end of the first round. It’s also logical to think that said team will have a lower pick next year, with Jefferson on the roster. So we’re maybe talking about two picks in the 20s.
That sounds a lot different than just saying two first-rounders, doesn’t it? And sure, there’s the financial benefit that those two players would come at a cheaper price than Jefferson, but it’s also no sure thing that they’ll be, you know, any good. That’s why, in the end, I’d bet on Minnesota jumping through the hoops it needs to in order to get a deal done for the NFL’s 2022 OPOY—and it’s also certainly possible Jefferson has a new quarterback in late April who might change his viewpoint on all of this.
Guess which question I got the most this week?
The landscape on Justin Fields is simpler than you might think. The supply at the quarterback position this offseason has hurt him in two ways. On the front end, the pending availability of Kirk Cousins and Baker Mayfield kept offers for Fields from coming in early. On the back end, with the Chicago Bears waiting for the top of the quarterback market to shake out, a bunch of other quarterbacks who wouldn’t require draft-pick compensation (Russell Wilson, Gardner Minshew, Sam Darnold, Jacoby Brissett) became available … and then were acquired.
Yes, the league is saying something here—at this point, Fields hasn’t done enough for another team to acquire him and lock him in as starter for the foreseeable future. If teams felt like he had, then he’d have had a market the way Cousins did, and Mayfield presumably would have if he’d gotten to Monday without a contract. That left Fields in the second group and, again, the fact that you’d have to trade for him and that his contract is what it is (one year left, plus a pricey option year) hurt his value.
