Vikings fans breathed a collective sigh of relief when superstar WR Justin Jefferson attended the team’s mandatory minicamp this week. Entering his fourth year, Jefferson is now eligible for a contract extension that should make him the highest-paid wide receiver in NFL history.
While Jefferson isn’t insisting on getting a deal done, the Vikings are actually best served to do it as soon as possible. For the purposes of discussion, let’s assume the contract is massive — a five-year, $175 million deal, for a $35 million per year average. That would put Jefferson far above the current leader at the position, Tyreek Hill at $30 million per year. Despite this massive leap in price, this is still Minnesota’s best option.
The following five reasons are why:
1. The five-year extension is actually a seven-year deal
When players under contract sign extensions, the standard is that the years of the extension will get added on to the end of the deal. That’s true for the even the biggest stars, like Josh Allen, who signed a six-year extension in 2021. That deal kept the 2021 and 2022 seasons on his existing deal, and added six years from 2023 through 2028. A five-year extension for Jefferson would put him under contract through his age 30 season in 2029.
Another aspect of these extensions is that they do not replace the money in those two existing years. When Josh Allen signed that six-year, $258 million extension, it was functionally an eight-year, $284 million deal. A Jefferson deal would look similar. The Vikings currently owe him just over $22 million between 2023 and 2024. That would turn the five-year extension to a seven-year, $197 million deal. Effectively, that would create a deal that pays Jefferson an average of $28.1 million over the next seven years.
2. Jefferson’s cap hit would stay low for at least three years
It’s reasonable to assume Jefferson’s contract would include massive guarantees. The highest guarantee total for a receiver is Cooper Kupp at $75 million, and the highest signing bonus is Tyreek Hill at $25.5 million. Jefferson could easily eclipse this with $95 million guaranteed and a $35 million signing bonus.
In his current deal, Jefferson’s cap hits over the next two years total just under $24 million. An extension like I’m about to propose below would keep his total cap hit the same across those two seasons, and keep it under $20 million in 2025 and 2026.
Let’s break it down:
A $35 million signing bonus would create a cap hit of $7 million per year over the next five seasons. The extension would reduce Jefferson’s salary to the minimum of $1.010 million, which would make his 2023 cap hit $8.010 million. That’s a cap hit increase of just over $3.8 million.
Jefferson’s minimum salary in 2024 would be $1.125 million, but to save money in future years let’s make Jefferson’s contract keep the same total cap hit across 2023 and 2024 and give him a $8.9 million salary. This would save $3.8 million in 2024, a year where the Vikings currently have over $53 million in cap space.
In 2025, the real money on the deal would kick in. With the numbers above, the Vikings could give Jefferson salaries of roughly $12.1 million in 2025, increasing to $30 million in 2026 and 2027, and ending at $40 million in 2028 and 2029. By 2025, the salary cap is projected at $282 million per Over the Cap. A $19.1 million cap hit would put Jefferson at just 6.8% of the cap.
In 2026, Jefferson’s salary would increase, but that can be reduced by a signing bonus conversion. If you did a maximum conversion on the $30 million salary, Jefferson’s cap hit would become $14.1 million.
3. Certainty helps future planning
The proposal above keeps Jefferson’s cap hit low for four seasons, including three seasons after Kirk Cousins‘ contract ends. If the Vikings take a young QB early in 2024, this would give them ample room to build around that player early in his career.
As it stands, the Vikings have few players under contract past 2024. Brian O’Neill is the only player scheduled to receive a significant contract in 2024, almost everyone else is on a rookie deal. Jefferson, T.J. Hockenson, and Christian Darrisaw are likely to join O’Neill as they get in line for extensions from the team.
Under current projections, the Vikings currently rank seventh in 2025 cap space, with over $165 million. The Jefferson contract proposed above would drop them just two spots, to ninth. This would give the team a ton of space to add free agents or retain a player like Byron Murphy to support a potential young quarterback.
4. The Wide Receiver Price tag will only increase
The WR market has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2020, only four receivers were paid $20 million per year or more — DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Keenan Allen, and Amari Cooper. In 2023, there are 13 players earning that much. Eight players have eclipsed Julio’s 2020 average of $22 million.
There are other young players set to break the bar that Tyreek Hill has set at $30 million. CeeDee Lamb has been very productive in his first two seasons and could break that barrier and will at least come close. Ja’Marr Chase is viewed in the same light as Justin Jefferson by the public, and will almost likely sign a huge deal when he is eligible next offseason.
When Patrick Mahomes signed his massive deal in 2020, he got $45 million per year, which shattered the $35 million average that Russell Wilson had. I’m projecting a similar paradigm shift at the position with Jefferson’s contract above. In 2023, Mahomes is still the best QB in the league, but his contract looks downright reasonable; it only carries the seventh-highest average salary.
Perhaps a more instructive example is looking at the cases of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. Both were drafted in the same season, and Allen got a head start as the seventh-overall pick. His rookie contract paid him $12 million more than Jackson, who was drafted 32nd.
Allen signed his extension early, and it surpassed everyone but Mahomes. The Chiefs QB was earning over $4 million more per year than Deshaun Watson, who was second at the time. However, as the cap has gone up, QB salaries have increased drastically. Lamar waited out all five years of his rookie deal and got a contract that will pay him $52 million a season this offseason.
Getting picked earlier and signing his deal earlier gave Allen a head start. But as of this year, Allen and Jackson will have almost identical career earnings. By 2027, the end of Lamar’s contract, he will have earned $30 million more than Allen.
Here is a breakdown of their total cumulative earnings by season:
If the Vikings wait to extend Jefferson, it will almost certainly cost them more money in the long run.
5. Justin Jefferson is awesome
The best reason for the Vikings to extend Jefferson now is the simplest: He’s amazing, and you don’t want to risk losing him. In three seasons, Jefferson has made the Pro Bowl all three years, made Second-Team All Pro twice, and made First-Team All Pro last year while also winning the Offensive Player of the Year award.
Jefferson has, by far, the most receiving yards for a player through his first three seasons. His 4,825 yards are over 600 more than second place, Randy Moss.
Not only does Jefferson hold impressive records through his first three seasons, he also owns an all-time record. Jefferson currently has the most receiving yards per game of any player in NFL history at 96.5.
Jefferson’s torrid pace to start his career will give him the chance to be counted among the all time greats. Jefferson has average 1,608 yards per season in his career so far. If he were to keep that pace up throughout the entirety of the extension proposed above, that would place him third all-time in receiving yards behind just Jerry Rice and Larry Fitzgerald, all by the age of 30.
Oh, and even without a contract, Jefferson showed up and did this at minicamp:
Minnesota Vikings, please extend this man.
