Tag: Justin Jefferson

Vikings stock watch: who is up, who is down after Week 1 win

The Vikings week one stock watch has a lot of star players

The Minnesota Vikings handily beat the Green Bay Packers 23-7 on Sunday afternoon in the Fox primetime slot.

With that win, the Vikings saw a lot of players see their stocks rise or fall. Let’s break them down in this week’s stock watch.

Stock up

Wide Receiver Justin Jefferson: Arguably the best wide receiver in the National Football League, Jefferson torched the Packers for nine receptions, 184 yards and two touchdowns getting open at will. His league-leading PFF grade of 91.1 is reflective of that.

Kirk Cousins: While his game wasn’t perfect, Cousins showed a different level of confidence about him in running the new Kevin O’Connell offense. He was calculated in his decision making, didn’t put the ball in harms way and found open receivers consistently.

Outside Linebacker Za’Darius Smith: After dealing with injuries each of the past two seasons, Smith came out like a wrecking ball against his former team. Lining up all over the defensive line, he was a force garnering  one sack and two pressures. The best play of the game came where Aaron Rodgers tried to block him and it didn’t go as planed.

Left Tackle Christian Darrisaw: After receiving praise and comparisons to Trent Williams during joint practices with the 49ers, Darrisaw had a really solid day. He showed really good power, technique and hand usage in protecting Cousins’ blindside. Darrisaw needs to work on not undersetting which allowed Gary to gain the edge but the early returns in year two are very promising.

Safety Harrison Smith: After signing a contract extension this offseason, Smith showed that he is still one of the best in the league. He was all over the field on Sunday, including intercepting a pass that ended a potential touchdown drive for the Packers before the half. Even though he is now 32 years old, Smith is still one of the best in the league.

Defensive Lineman Dalvin Tomlinson: This scheme is perfect for Tomlinson. He gets to line up as a 4i or 5T during rushing downs and slide to the inside as a pass rusher. He was dominant on the day including recovering the Rodgers fumble.

Stock Down

Cornerback Patrick Peterson: Even though he is still a servicable player at his age and experience level, Peterson getting thoroughly cooked on the first play of the season by rookie Christian Watson raised a major cause for concern moving forward.

Guard Ed Ingram: This is a complicated one, as Ingram was overall good but he showed some deficiencies in pass protection. Per PFF, in 15 true pass sets, he graded out at an abysmal 2.6. A true mover in the running game, Ingram needs to improve in pass protection but the talent and physical ability is there.

Wide Receiver K.J. Osborn: How much of his nearly invisible performance was due to Jefferson is up for debate but Osborn was almost non-existent on Sunday in catching three passes for 14 yards. With Jefferson likely to be a heavy priority moving forward for defenses, Osborn will be counted on to step up.

 

5 things to know going into Vikings vs Eagles on Monday Night Football

Here are five things to know about the critical Monday night matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles

The Minnesota Vikings face off against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football.

With both teams at 1-0 and coming off of a big win against an NFC North opponent.

Going into the game, there are a lot of interesting storylines and things to know. Here are the five most important ones heading into Monday night.

Eagles open as early 2.5-point favorites over the Vikings in Week 2

Philadelphia Eagles open as early 2.5-point home favorites over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 2 on Monday Night Football

The Eagles and Vikings are on an early season Monday night collision course, and Philadelphia will start the week as an early 2.5-point home favorite, according to Tipico Sportsbook.

Monday night’s Week 2 matchup is the first time star wide receiver Justin Jefferson and the Vikings visit Philadelphia since he went one pick after Jalen Reagor in the 2020 draft.

Reagor is now a teammate of Jefferson, having been traded to Minnesota.

One of the NFL’s elite pass catchers, Jefferson has logged 3,016 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns in his first two seasons, and he’s heading to Lincoln Financial Field fresh off a nine-catch, 184-yard, two-touchdown performance against the Packers in a season-opening win.

[vertical-gallery id=671183]

[listicle id=671449]

[listicle id=671427]

[listicle id=671133]

[listicle id=671127]

[lawrence-related id=671502,671436,671437,671426,671395]

Vikings open up as 2.5-point underdog vs Eagles

Monday’s game is essentially a pick-em on a neutral field

After opening up as an underdog against the Green Bay Packers last week, it happened once again in week two with the Philadelphia Eagles as a 2.5-point favorite over the Minnesota Vikings on Tipico Sportsbook.

The line also has the over/under at 51.5 points. This line signals that this is a pick-em game on a neutral field due to the home team getting spotted three points for the home field advantage.

Going into Monday night’s matchup, both teams had impressive offensive performances. The Vikings jumped out to a big lead over the Packers with a myriad of concepts, including a deep crosser to Justin Jefferson for an explosive touchdown.

On the Eagles side, they jumped out to a 17-point lead before allowing the Lions to get back into the game. They ran an incredibly balanced offense with quarterback Jalen Hurts throwing for 239 yards and the team rushing for 216 yards.

The interesting element of this matchup will be in the trenches. The Vikings defense garnered four sacks and 18 pressures against Aaron Rodgers while the Eagles have one of the more intimidating interior duos in Fletcher Cox and Jordan Davis.

Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.com for Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO).

Justin Jefferson leads the NFL in receiving yards

Jefferson leading the league in receiving yards should come as no surprise

After a fantastic week one against the Green Bay Packers, it should come as no surprise that Justin Jefferson is atop the NFL in receiving yards.

The Vikings did a great job in working Jefferson open in a myriad of ways on Sunday. Head coach Kevin O’Connell moved him around in a few ways, including getting Jefferson lined up across from an edge rusher and having him in the backfield.

One of the more impressive plays on Sunday against the Packers was when Jefferson caught a touchdown on one of the core concepts in this offense: the wave.

Throughout the course of the season, these elements are going to continue. O’Connell did an excellent job scheming open Cooper Kupp open consistently last year and that led to him winning the triple crown.

The sky is the limit for Jefferson’s pursuit of a 2,000-yard season and it is only just the beginning.

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbyjpbajmjvnqmj player_id=none image=https://vikingswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

Vikings film room: Justin Jefferson deep crosser touchdown

We broke down Justin Jefferson’s second touchdown catch of Sunday’s game

The Minnesota Vikings offense has already seen big changes.

After not prioritizing the passing game or using motion throughout the last three years with quarterback Kirk Cousins, new head coach Kevin O’Connell came to the organization to modernize the offense and try to get the best out of Kirk Cousins and the great wide receivers on the team.

The epitome of what the Vikings are trying to do is in this play which resulted in Jefferson’s second touchdown.

The concept that the Vikings are running is called the Wave concept.

On this play, the Vikings line up in a 1X3 look in 11 personnel before Irv Smith Jr. motions to the front side.

On the snap, they go play-action to Dalvin Cook with a shallow and deep crosser on the front side with a deep crosser and a post on the backside.

The shallow crosser and outlet route by Cook are designed to draw the linebackers forward to make fitting the ball to the deep crosser easier. The backside post is meant to clear the deep safety by forcing him to stay in the middle of the field to give Jefferson room to gain yards after the catch.

The Vikings catch the Packers in cover-3 and they don’t pass off Thielen once he crosses the hash mark leaving Jefferson streaking wide open and he works his way into the end zone.

Depending on the coverage, any of the three deep routes can be the priority. It also works really well if all three of the deeper routes are covered to have two shallow routes to fall back to.

Later in the game, they ran the same concept and hit it for a nice gain. With a better throw that leads him, Jefferson has an outside shot at scoring on this play.

Concepts like this will be utilized often for the Vikings. It’s a new era and it’s exciting.

5 takeaways from the Vikings 23-7 win over the Packers

There was a lot to take away from the Vikings win over the Packers

……….

The Minnesota Vikings coming out a 23-7 victor wasn’t a surprise but how it went down was one.

Kirk Cousins looked better than Aaron Rodgers, the defense was excellent in every facet and head coach Kevin O’Connell looked like a cagey veteran in his head coaching debut.

While there were a lot of things to look at concerning the first game of the Vikings 2022 season, we identified five takeaways that stood out from Sunday’s win over the Packers.

Vikings PFF Grades: Best and worst performers in week 1 win vs Packers

The best and worst of the PFF grades from Sunday’s game

The Minnesota Vikings dominated the Green Bay Packers by a score of 23-7 in a game that never really felt close.

Head coach Kevin O’Connell became the fifth head coach in Minnesota Vikings history to win his debut for the franchise.

When the grades came in, they looked really good but there were some disappointing performances.

Here are the best and worst of Sunday’s PFF grades.

The Packers didn’t have a plan for Justin Jefferson, and it showed

The Packers let Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson destroy their defense. Here’s the evidence that Green Bay didn’t have a plan for Jefferson — at all.

Jaire Alexander is the Green Bay Packers’ best cornerback. But he was injured in 2021, missing all but the first four games of the season due to a shoulder injury. As a result, Alexander missed both Packers games against their NFC North opponent, the Minnesota Vikings.

So, maybe the Packers’ defensive staff forgot that Alexander was available in Week 1 of the 2022 season to cover Justin Jefferson, one of the best receivers in the league?

That’s certainly what it looked like. In a 23-7 Vikings win, Jefferson went all thermonuclear against the Pack, as is his wont. He caught nine passes on 11 targets for 184 yards and two touchdowns. That 184 yards, by the way, was just 11 yards less than the 195 passing yards Aaron Rodgers had in this entire game.

But we digress.

Back to the Packers’ defense, and the plan — such as it was — for covering Jefferson. After the game, head coach Matt LaFleur was quizzed about why Alexander wasn’t following Jefferson all around the field.

“Yeah, it doesn’t necessarily always work that way in terms of — if you just commit to playing man coverage the whole game, sure, you can do it. But they do a nice job of putting them in different positions, whether it’s in the slot, whether it’s motioning. It seemed like he was in motion quite a bit, just moving him all over the place. You’ve got to give them credit. They put him in premier spots and attacked our coverage well, and certainly we had a couple blown coverages, as well, where we’re cutting him loose, and if there’s anybody you don’t want to cut loose, it’s No. 18. We’ll go back and look at the tape. Obviously, again, we have to coach so much better.”

The Packers’ plan was to zone it up a lot, and have different defenders on Jefferson. This certainly was a pleasant surprise for Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.

“I would be a little surprised, yep,” Cousins said when asked if he expected Jefferson to get better and more compressed coverage. “Whenever he has a game at that magnitude, not because of him, but you expect him to get taken way a little bit, and he will at times. Our coaches are trying to find ways to still keep him involved, and we were able to do that today. So it’s going to be kind of a conversation we had a lot last season, and we’ll have this season each week of how does he get defended.”

It was not a pleasant surprise for Alexander.

Based on my charting, Alexander was not the closest defender to Jefferson on any of his 11 targets. New Vikings head coach and offensive play-designer Kevin O’Connell, fresh off his two-year tenure as Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator with the Rams, did a masterful job of aligning and motioning Jefferson away from Green Bay’s most formidable pass defender. LaFleur brought this up, of course (one offensive coach appreciating another offensive coach), and it certainly showed up on the field. Here’s how the Jefferson distribution looked on Sunday:

Safety Darnell Savage, Jr.: Three targets, two catches, 57 yards, one touchdown.

Cornerback Rasul Douglas: Three targets, three catches, 75 yards.

Cornerback Eric Stokes: Two targets, two catches, 25 yards, one touchdown.

Linebacker Quay Walker: One target, one catch, 22 yards.

Edge-rusher Preston Smith: One target, one catch, five yards.

Safety Adrian Amos: One target, no catches.

So, When you have a rookie linebacker in Walker, and a veteran edge-rusher in Smith, covering the other team’s alpha-dog receiver more than Alexander did, that would seem to be less than an ideal plan. Moreover, the strategy to play a bunch of zone against Jefferson really didn’t work because again, O’Connell did some great stuff to beat it.

So, where did the Packers get it so wrong? Let’s go to the tape.

Tras el partido, un Aaron Rodgers muy desanimado le dijo a Justin Jefferson que él era ‘el mejor jugador del partido’

Después de que Davante Adams se fuera a los Raiders, sabíamos que para Aaron Rodgers siempre iba a ser frustrante liderar una ofensiva sin un receptor abierto que fuera su verdadera arma No. 1. La frustración de Rodgers se hizo aún peor al ver que …

Después de que Davante Adams se fuera a los Raiders, sabíamos que para Aaron Rodgers siempre iba a ser frustrante liderar una ofensiva sin un receptor abierto que fuera su verdadera arma No. 1. La frustración de Rodgers se hizo aún peor al ver que el receptor de los Vikings Justin Jefferson montó todo un espectáculo durante el partido del sábado de la Semana 1.

Los Vikings abrieron la temporada con una victoria muy convincente de 23-7 sobre los Packers. Y además de hacer que Rodgers se viera como alguien completamente ordinario, los Vikings le dieron a la defensiva de Green Bay una racha constante de pases a Jefferson, y no hubo nada que los Packers pudieran hacer para detenerlos.

Después de que Jefferson terminara su día con nueve recepciones para 184 yardas y dos anotaciones, casi podía sentirse la envidia de Rodgers cuando los dos se reunieron a mitad del campo para su plática al terminar el partido.

Traducción: “El mejor jugador del partido de hoy”. @AaronRodgers12 a @JJettas2.

 

Rodgers le dijo a Jefferson que el receptor había sido el mejor jugador del partido de hoy, que fue por supuesto fue algo muy lindo por parte de Rodgers. Pero al mismo tiempo, acababa de ver a sus propios receptores tirar pases de anotación y correr la ruta incorrecta toda la tarde.

Rodgers se vio abatido durante gran parte del partido e incluso cuando le hizo un cumplido a Jefferson, se veía destrozado de saber quién está en sus vestidores.

Los fans de la NFL pudieron sentir el mal sabor de boca de esa conversación después del partido.

Así reaccionaron los fans en Twitter:

Traducción: Rodgers debe tener a Jefferson en su equipo de fantasy.

 

Traducción: Hermano, se ve desanimado.

 

Traducción: Lo que en realidad le dijo fue “Quisiera tenerte a ti en lugar de a mi basura de receptores”.

 

Traducción: Rodgers rogándole que solicite una transferencia.

 

Podría ser pronto para decir esto, pero si Rodgers no puede encontrar un receptor que esté listo para hacer su trabajo y que se ponga a la altura de lo que tiene que hacer, esta podría ser una temporada muy larga para Green Bay.

 

Artículo traducido por Ana Lucía Toledo

[lawrence-related id=50955,50946]