Despite the Minnesota Vikings winning two straight games, with some solid performances against the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys in consecutive weeks, the team is having a rough season and could end the 2025 campaign with a losing record.
Along with the Vikings struggling throughout the 2025 NFL season, superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson is having a down year. Even though there’s still a good chance Jefferson will crack the 1,000-yard receiving mark over the final three regular-season games, as he’s sitting at 832 receiving yards heading into Week 16, the four-time All-Pro has only caught two touchdown passes, which is his lowest total (5) since the 2023 season, when he played in only 10 games.
Kevin O’Connell Opens Up About Justin Jefferson’s Role
GettyJustin Jefferson #18 of the Minnesota Vikings
With Jefferson on pace to have his worst season statistically, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell spoke about the role the superstar wideout has played and what the team has tried to do to get him involved.
“I did think we had some good opportunities,” O’Connell said during media availability. “We talked about Justin in the end zone there. We had against man-to-man on a kind of a deep crossing route. … Those have been kind of plays that when we get that one chance, sometimes can be a chance for Justin for a sequence of 20 to 25 plays where there’s no safety leaning into him, there’s not a double team, there’s not a coverage rolling to him, so when you are second and 10 after those plays, it does feel a bit more significant then a standard get-back-on-track play, but like I said, Justin is still doing all the things required for us to win and nobody wants to make those plays more than Justin and nobody wants to make those throws more than J.J. [McCarthy].
“We just have to continue to find ways to allow Justin to impact the game. I thought we found him. … We’re always going to try to find ways where we’re not going to miss an opportunity and I think he got an ample amount of targets for the kind of game that it was, considering the total number of pass attempts that we had, but we are absolutely on the hunt to have our best player as involved as we possibly can.”
Obviously, with a young quarterback under center in J.J. McCarthy, Jefferson’s numbers were going to suffer if the Michigan product struggled during his first full season.
The real question is whether that will change moving forward, and if McCarthy truly is the real deal and a player who can get the most out of one of the elite wide receivers in the NFL.
Cris Carter Reveals Reason for Justin Jefferson’s Struggles
GettyFormer receiver Cris Carter of the Minnesota Vikings
During an appearance on Up & Adams with Kay Adams, Vikings legend Cris Carter opened up about why he believes that Jefferson is having his worst season in the NFL and makes the comparison to Hall of Famer and arguably one of the greatest wide receivers in team and league history, Randy Moss.
“This is the first time during J.J.’s career that they can’t attack the full field,” Carter said of Jefferson. “Ever since his rookie year in KOC’s offense, they have been able to throw the ball and especially take deep shots down the field, especially off the play action, and you can see that he’s starting to press.
“He’s not putting up the numbers he’s used to. Randy Moss had some of the same issues. He was so successful early in his career that when things got difficult, and they only got difficult with inconsistency at quarterback.”
It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out in Minnesota with McCarthy and Jefferson, but it’s clearly gotten off to a rough start.
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