He just keeps climbing
Despite the Minnesota Vikings falling to the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday Night Football, wide receiver Justin Jefferson continues to blast his way through the team’s record books.
With his eight-catch, 115-yard performance on Thursday night, Jefferson moved himself into fifth place on the team’s all-time receiving yardage list. He now has 6,545 career yards, passing Jake Reed for that fifth-place spot.
In his Vikings career, Reed caught 413 passes for 6,433 yards. He did that in 134 career games in purple. Last night was game No. 67 for Jefferson as a member of the Vikings, meaning that he caught and surpassed Reed’s career yardage total in exactly half the number of games. Yes, it’s a different era now than it was then, but that’s still pretty impressive.
Next up on the list for Jefferson is his former teammate, Adam Thielen. Thielen had 6,682 career receiving yards as a Viking, which means that Jefferson needs 138 more yards to surpass Thielen for that fourth-place spot.
Breaking into the top three this season is not outside of the realm of possibility for Jefferson, either.
That spot currently belongs to Anthony Carter with 7,636 career yards, putting him 1,091 yards ahead of Jefferson as it stands right now. Given that Jefferson averages an NFL record 97.7 yards/game for his career, he could certainly make a run at it if he stays healthy all season and will definitely get there in 2025. Had he not missed nearly half of last season with his hamstring issue, he probably would have surpassed that mark already.
Breaking into the top two is going to be harder, given that those spots are occupied by Cris Carter (12,383 yards) and Randy Moss (9,316 yards).
But the mere fact that Jefferson is already one of the top five receivers in Minnesota Vikings history in terms of receiving yardage midway through his fifth NFL season is pretty mind-blowing.
