Justin Jefferson has 7,432 receiving yards in his first five seasons. He’s made the Pro Bowl and an All-Pro team in every season except for 2023, when he injured his hamstring. In 2022, he broke Randy Moss’ single-season receiving yards record.
Still, he has yet to win a playoff game in the NFL.
“It’s definitely tough,” he admitted after the Los Angeles Rams eliminated the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs. “Having this type of season with as close as we are as a team.”
Jefferson led the league with 128 receptions for 1,809 yards in 2022, the year he broke Moss’ single-season receiving yards record. The Vikings won 13 games that year, but they lost to the New York Giants as 2.5-point favorites.
Last year, Minnesota won 14 games and lost to the Los Angeles Rams as 2.5-point favorites.
The chief frustration with the Vikings is that history repeats itself in the most unfortunate way. Gary Anderson and Blair Walsh missed crucial kicks. They always have inconsistent quarterback play. Minnesota has two dramatic playoff wins over the New Orleans Saints after the Saints put a bounty on Brett Favre, only to lose by a large margin in the next round both times.
Not every season is the same, but they rhyme, and it’s always a discordant sound. Nobody wants to speculate about whether Will Reichard will miss a crucial kick in the playoffs. We don’t know if J.J. McCarthy can become Minnesota’s first homegrown franchise quarterback since Daunte Culpepper. Beating the Saints is always fun. Still, we’re left to wonder whether the Vikings are as good as the Philadelphia Eagles or a healthy San Francisco 49ers team.
The Vikings carry a bell that keeps ringing. We can’t unsee Anderson’s lone missed kick in 1998 or Brett Favre throwing across his body in 2009. The specter of Minnesota’s kicking woes hovers over Reichard. Fran Tarkenton retired in 1978, and we still evoke his name as the standard for McCarthy.
Call it living in the past, but the past is always present for the Vikings. The bell rings loudly and frequently, and it always tolls. Past playoff losses create baggage that people carry throughout the offseason. There are always losses that mar an otherwise successful season.
Last year was a prime example. The Vikings lost four games to two teams. The Detroit Lions beat them in Week 7, and the Rams beat them five days later in Week 8. The Lions beat them in Week 18; LA polished them off in Glendale.
The Lions used max protect and dagger effectively against Brian Flores’ defense, much like the Cincinnati Bengals used dagger to break it in 2023. Minnesota lost Christian Darrisaw late in the Thursday Night Football game in LA; the Rams saw how Detroit beat the Vikings in Week 18 and exploited their offensive line to eliminate them from the playoffs.
“We’ve lost to two teams this whole entire year in the same [sequence],” Jefferson rued after the Rams ended Minnesota’s season. “That’s the most difficult thing to process.”
It’s difficult to think with ringing in your ears. It’s hard to compartmentalize each season when the results always feel familiar.
Under Kevin O’Connell, Minnesota has won in the regular season and lost in the playoffs. The Vikings have won 55% of their games in franchise history, tied with the New England Patriots for the eighth-highest percentage in the NFL. The Miami Dolphins (55.2%) and Kansas City Chiefs (55.3%) are only marginally higher; the Pittsburgh Steelers (53.7%), 49ers (53.6%), and Denver Broncos (52.3%) are meaningfully lower.
The difference between those teams and the Vikings?
They’ve won the Super Bowl.
“It was just the type of year to have a good chance at a Super Bowl,” Jefferson said, reflecting on last season in front of his empty locker. “That’s the most tough part, that this team won’t be the same next year.”
The Vikings retained many of their players from last season. Still, McCarthy will take over for Sam Darnold under center, and Minnesota overhauled the trenches to insulate him in his rookie season. Camryn Bynum signed with the Indianapolis Colts, and Minnesota’s secondary is its most uncertain unit.
Minnesota enters next season with Super Bowl promise and playoff doubt. Training camp always brings hope, but the Vikings can’t fully remove themselves from last year’s playoff loss. They have the same core and coaching staff, and a history of losing as favorites in the postseason. People will believe history will repeat itself until the Vikings show them that it won’t.
The bell will continue to ring until it is silenced.
