The Minnesota Vikings have the best wide receiver in the NFL Justin Jefferson. Not only do they have the best wide receiver in the game, he is set to be paid like it.
An extension is looming for Jefferson and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has gone on record that he deserves to have his own week when he gets it. The real question is this: how much will he end up getting?
We have discussed Jefferson's contract at length over the last couple of months with the ever-changing landscape of the market. Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer opined that his guaranteed money could approach $100 million.
But he also conceded to me, when we talked about it last summer, that the life-changing second contract he had coming would fulfill “a dream of mine. It’s been a dream since I was 7 years old.”
Jefferson has certainly been patient with that dream, playing last year without a new contract, and going through this offseason without one while Detroit Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown got paid and A.J. Brown got another contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. And those two deals are benchmarks moving forward. St. Brown’s deal was advertised at $28 million per year, while Brown’s contract was at $32 million annually. And what’s most interesting about their deals is how quickly the money comes.
Brown’s due $80 million over the first three years of his revised contract, which is a nice bump over the $68 million he’d previously been owed for that period of time. And St. Brown landed $63.386 million over the first three years of his new deal. He’d been owed $3.366 million in the final year of his rookie deal, which means he’s getting $60 million in new money for the two new years.
Because Jefferson is also going into the final year of a rookie contract, the St. Brown deal is easier to apply to his situation. And since Jefferson is owed $19.743 million on his fifth-year option, the apples-to-apples equivalent of his deal to St. Brown would bring him about $80 million over the next three years. Give him the bump for—all due respect to St. Brown—being a better player, and waiting an extra year … do you go to $90 million over the next three years? Or $100 million?
That is a really interesting angle that Breer takes here. Talking about the cash distribution in the first three years is important, especially since Brown signed his first extension in April of 2022. If Jefferson truly is set to break the mold and set the NFL record with the highest non-quarterback contract, $100 million is certainly doable.
Will the Vikings give it to Jefferson? Based on how Adofo-Mensah has talked about Jefferson, the answer is undoubtedly yes.
