Justin Jefferson logged his first “full participant” practice in more than two months on Wednesday and he’s 100% healthy, ready to go when the Minnesota Vikings take on the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday.
“I feel pretty good,” Jefferson said Thursday. “I’m excited to be back on the field, to be playing with this team and to finally just be active on that field.”
Is he 100% healthy with the same explosiveness?
“Of course. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be playing,” Jefferson said. “That was the main focus into getting back on the field, is to having that same explosion, having that same power, having that same speed as I did before the injury.”
Jefferson said he was close to 100% ahead of the Chicago game before the bye, but the decision to proceed with caution was made to avoid a setback. As Jefferson said, they weren’t fully confident that he wouldn’t tweak his hamstring if he had to “use that extra gear to run away from someone”
Taking Jefferson out of the lineup for eight games didn’t stop the Vikings from having the sixth-most passing yards in the league without him. But his return brings the explosive element the passing game was missing. Before he was injured Oct. 5 against the Chiefs, Jefferson was averaging 15.9 yards per catch and had 14 receptions of 20+ yards.
If Jefferson keeps pace with what he was doing before the injury – averaging 7.2 catches for 114.2 yards per game – he’ll finish the season with 72 catches for 1,142 yards – a great season but well short of his goal of coming close to 2,000 yards.
“It’s been hard to adjust those goals, honestly,” Jefferson admitted, “especially on the pace that I was going before the injury. It’s a little tough to see [Tyreek Hill] going crazy every single week and to see different people throughout the whole entire league doing tremendous things.”
Hill lead the NFL with 1,481 receiving yards, putting him on pace for 2,098 yards. No receiver has eclipses 2,000 yards in a single season in NFL history.
“That was the goal to get to at least close to 2,000, but since I got hurt the new goal is 1,000. I want to end every single year over 1,000 yards,” Jefferson said.
