EAGAN, Minn. — A $140 million contract extension can buy you a lot of things as an NFL player. But it can't pay your way out of a costly injury. If there's anything that the Minnesota Vikings and wide receiver Justin Jefferson know as they approach the 2024 season, it's that.
This is why Minnesota’s $35 million-per-season receiver was on a bit of a mileage count this week, taking a veteran rest day on Wednesday and then rolling that into the team’s day off on Thursday as the Vikings and Jefferson have been carefully handling his health in training camp. All in an effort to avoid repeating something like last season’s torn right hamstring, which cost Jefferson seven games and introduced the young wideout to a something that he’d never experienced in the expanse of his football career: sitting when his team needed him more than ever.
The response? Some early load management for the 25-year-old, whose early camp wear and tear is being monitored on a daily basis in hopes of making sure he’s available for a 17-game season.
“I’m so scared for it to happen again, I’ve been overly cautious about it,” Jefferson said Friday about his hamstring injury last season. “Just trying to take care of my body in the right way. Just trying to find new ways and new things that I can implement on my day to day life that would better help me throughout the season. I’ve definitely been working on my hamstrings a little bit more and making sure I’m injury proof.”
Part of that effort resulted in the back-to-back days off this week, as the Vikings have begun trying to get him the camp recovery time that more and more teams are starting to recognize as vital for injury avoidance. Often thought of as a means to keep older veterans on a career-extending pitch count, strength and conditioning staffs, as well as coaching staffs and front offices, are leaning more into resting their young stars than ever before in camp, trying to stave off injuries both big and small later in the year. A trend that’s especially true for young, highly tuned players like Jefferson, who can fall victim to soft tissue injuries in camp that then linger or get worse once the regular season kicks off.
For those who have watched the Netflix series “Receiver,” it’s hardly surprising to see Jefferson and the Vikings approaching last season’s hamstring issue with such an abundance of caution. Jefferson’s injury — and the mental toll it took on him at times — became a central part of his story on the series. The results showcased a window into how Jefferson is likely to approach his body moving forward, transitioning him into a constant monitoring, caretaking and dialing phase that most elite NFL players enter at some point. Partially in an effort to get over playing with the fear of previous injuries, and partially to make sure they never happen again.
“I’ll get to the point where I feel like I’m not going to think of it again,” Jefferson said Friday. “Just because I feel like I’m going to push it to where it’s way strong enough for it not to happen again. It’s just all about being confident in it — just having that confidence in it to where it’s not going to happen again and I can go out there and play freely.”
The process for Jefferson and the team has been twofold. Part of it has been his own self-monitoring, communicating how his body is responding every day to the training staff and then adjusting accordingly. But another part has been the Vikings keeping tabs on all of physical analytics of his practice days. That includes a host of data pulled from both tape and in-pad monitors, as well as monitoring his mass at the end of each day.
“They look at the amount of yards that I’m running, how much I’m running, how hard I’m running, and of course the amount of weight I’m dropping at the end of practices with this hot temperature, sweating tremendously,” Jefferson said. “Just having that — I don’t like to call it vet day — but having a rest day, just for me to come back out here today and give it that 100 percent. Just trying to monitor my body and how I’m feeling and trying to make sure that I’m ready for Week 1.
“I like [the rest] and I hate it at the same time. Just because I never really was the type of person to take days off and have vet days. But I understand that I’m starting to get a little older and the yards and how I’m running and the way I’m running every single day of practice, it starts to take a toll on me. It’s just taking a little step back, resting my body for that one day and then coming in ready to go that next day.”
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell stopped short of actually calling the effort a dedicated maintenance plan for Jefferson, instead likening it to a player just learning how to listen to his body after missing such a large portion of a season for the first time in his career.
“I wouldn’t go so far to call it [a maintenance plan], as much as Justin learned a lot through that process post-injury, and kind of learned a lot about his body,” O’Connell said. “I think he’s done everything possible to have himself ready to go for training camp, but we want to make sure Justin plays a lot of snaps for us. We want to make sure his training camp progression is the right kind of progression coming off of really a first time [issue] for him, having the type of injury he had.
“It’s more a matter of the dialogue he has with [Director of Health and Performance Tyler Williams] and myself and making sure that our plan for him as we progress through the month of August has him in his prime, optimal, physical football shape, ready to roll — while also still tactically getting him prepared, because he’s a guy that needs to see a lot of football throughout training camp just because of how unique he’s defended when it comes to 17 games over the course of the season.”
And of course, another part of the importance of that availability is Jefferson’s impact on the Vikings quarterback spot — most especially the development of rookie J.J. McCarthy, who has been leaning on Jefferson as resource off the field as much as on it. That tandem’s relationship is arguably the most important of any two players moving into the 2024 season and beyond, particularly in these early stages of McCarthy’s first NFL camp as he tries to smooth out the rollercoaster nature of his first practices.
“I’m always getting work with him,” Jefferson said of McCarthy. “If it’s not even on the field, if it’s after practice, he’s asking me different questions on what reads I’m looking at or how to better read this — just plays in general that we have throughout the practices. He’s always the person that’s always asking me questions and always trying to learn any way he can.”
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