Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said in his Monday afternoon press conference he didn't know yet on Monday how long Justin Jefferson could be out because of the hamstring injury that sidelined him during Sunday's 27-20 loss to the Chiefs. Then, early Tuesday morning, a source confirmed the team plans to place him on injured reserve, meaning he'll miss the next four games.
Jefferson's absence will mean significant short-term changes for the Vikings' passing game. The receiver has 53 of the Vikings' 199 targets this year, and had an even larger percentage of them last year, when he received 184 of the team's 641 targets.
For as much as they'd lose because of Jefferson's absence, the Vikings can hope they derive some benefit from the idea teams could play them differently.
We've written here before about what O'Connell calls the "JJ effect," when the Vikings see teams drop their normal coverage principles in favor of devoting extra attention to Jefferson. In some cases, it's meant the Vikings' advance scouting of a team's defensive tendencies is almost irrelevant, given how much opponents change based on Jefferson's presence on the field. They've found ways to deal with it, and Jefferson posted 543 receiving yards in his first four games this year. There's no scenario in which not having the receiver is a positive for the Vikings. But if there's any silver lining to his absence, it might be if defenses play truer to their coverage principles and present Kirk Cousins with looks that are closer to the ones he's seen on film.
Cousins has stated several times he plays quarterback based on where his reads take him; there's not much gunslinger to the way he plays the position. He's been emboldened to find Jefferson in tight coverage more often, and talked last week about how a pass that would normally be a low-percentage throw isn't as big of a risk when Jefferson is on the receiving end. If teams play the Vikings straighter while Jefferson is out, though, it could mesh with Cousins' default approach.
The Vikings, of course, will need receivers who can separate from coverage, and Jordan Addison's emergence might be of particular importance here. The rookie led the Vikings with six catches for 64 yards and a touchdown on Sunday, and O'Connell praised the way the 5-10 receiver has adjusted to physical coverage from cornerbacks. "That's pretty much what [defensive backs] are going to have to do to slow me down," Addison said Monday. "So every week, I'm just trying to find a way to get better at attacking the defender, whether it's knocking that hand down, taking my shoulder away or just better footwork."
Addison, K.J Osborn, T.J. Hockenson and players such as Brandon Powell would have to help compensate for a massive hole in the Vikings' offense with Jefferson out. The Vikings will see if they can adjust to the loss of their best player by trying to capitalize on the way defenses could change as a result.
"A big thing for [Addison] now, and K.J. [Osborn] and really the rest of our receiving corps, our tight ends group and C.J. [Ham] as a fullback, how can we continue to activate a lot of things when a lot of our pass game has really been built around so much coverage being deployed to Justin?" O'Connell said. "We got a lot of double teams yesterday, a lot of physical play at the line of scrimmage for him that quite frankly opened some things up for some other guys. [If] people decide to play us a little more straight up or true, [it could affect] how we run it maybe against some looks that, quite frankly, we don't get a whole lot. All of that will really kind of work together in marrying the run and the pass, and we've got to find the best matchups we can on third down and in the red zone. But I'm very confident in our group."
