Will Thielen (and the other WRs) be up to task w/o Diggs?

Translatable skills

During NFL Draft season we often hear “production versus projection” debates. In Jefferson’s case, he has both the wow numbers in college and the raw athleticism to project a high ceiling.

At LSU he caught 111 passes for 1,540 yards and 18 touchdowns for the national champs and at the NFL Combine he ran a 4.43 40-yard dash, jumped an 80th percentile vertical and overall landed in the top five receivers in the class by Relative Athletic Scores, which combines height/weight and key Combine events to for a 1-10 rating. He scored a 9.69 out of 10.

As you have probably heard by now, Jefferson thrived in the slot, catching 109 of his 111 passes while lined up inside and he was not used at LSU as a deep receiver, only catching nine throws that traveled more than 20 yards in the air.

PFF’s Austin Gayle said that Jefferson’s usage will be a huge determining factor as to how well he translates into the NFL in 2020.

“Temper expectations if he plays 80% of his routes at outside receiver,” Gayle said on the Purple Insider Podcast. “They have to have him in condensed sets, they have to have him in the slot, they have to involve him against off coverage because press coverage is where he saw difficulty and struggled to separate against more athletic corners.”

Back in the day playing in the slot might have made you a No. 3 or 4 receiver only but in today’s NFL players like Chris Godwin of Tampa Bay and NFL receptions leader Michael Thomas spend a high percentage of their snaps in the slot.

“Maybe you project him to a similar [role] as Michael Thomas to where you’re winning on the short and intermediate levels of the field,” Gayle said. “Jefferson fits that mold more than a Will Fuller, Julio Jones or Tyreek Hill, these guys who can get down the field and win consistently….I compare Justin Jefferson to Cooper Kupp — a receiver that’s super crafty and has very, very good ball skills but plays the majority of his routes in the slot.”

We know that the NFL Draft can be a crap shoot but there are some skill sets that clearly carry over better than others. Having the route-running chops to create separation consistently has a high correlation with NFL success. Like most receivers coming out of college, Jefferson has some strengths and weaknesses as a route runner.

“He’s a crafty route runner,” Gayle said. “When given the opportunity on option routes, double-moves, he can sell head fakes and do a lot of creative things to create separation in one-on-one coverage. His problem is slants, curls, hitches, you aren’t seeing that separation on one-cut routes because he isn’t a quick-twitch athlete like other receivers who have dominated for a long time.”

Yahoo! Sports’ Matt Harmon, who created a project studying route running called Reception Perception, sees Jefferson as a player who shows a dedication to the route-running craft.

“I think he is that technician,” Harmon said. “He’s much more ready to play [than most rookies] but of course we have to say everything in COVID-adjusted terms like when is he going to be in the building and get with the team entirely but in a theoretical [situation] where all things are equal I think he has a chance to be an instant impact player because he knows how to run routes.”

Jefferson has two advantages that can help him make up for the adaptation curve in Year 1: Contested catches and YAC ability. While there are sure to be some eyerolls about contested catches because that was Laquon Treadwell’s M.O., Jefferson had a ridiculous 92% contested catch rate per PFF.

“I think he’s a high-point type of receiver,” Jones said on the Purple Insider Podcast. “He likes to go up and get the ball and fight for the ball at its highest point…he’s a red zone target. Throw it up to him at the back pylon and let him go get it. That’s something the Vikings probably need.”

When Jefferson gets the ball in his hands on short routes, he can turn them into big plays with his athleticism and a natural gift for making people miss. Per PFF, he had 25 forced missed tackles, fourth most in the draft.

“Justin Jefferson seems like a natural football player, a natural wide receiver,” Jones said. “A guy who has a knack for the game. He’s not like a track star playing football and you have a lot of those…he knows what to do with the ball in his hands like he’s been playing football since he was a little kid…this dude knows what he’s doing. When he catches the ball he turns into almost like a running back.”

So what does this leave us with? Clearly Jefferson isn’t flawless. But if Gary Kubiak finds sets and situations to either get him off the line of scrimmage clean or quickly get the ball into his hands, there’s a high chance of the LSU star having a productive season.

Recent history

How productive?

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The door was briefly open for Johnson to take over as the No. 2 receiver in 2020 when the Vikings traded Stefon Diggs, but the selection of Justin Jefferson all but slammed that door shut. Instead, Johnson will compete with free agent pickup Tajae Sharpe and a host of others for the WR3 job.

Sharpe has more NFL experience, but Johnson has the benefit of knowing Kubiak's offense and having a rapport with Cousins after playing a year in the system. Another thing Johnson has going for him is his ability as a blocker on the outside; he weighs ten pounds more than Sharpe and was impressive in that area as a rookie.

Johnson isn't the biggest, fastest, or most elusive receiver out there. He was never a No. 1 receiver in college and will never be a No. 1 receiver in the NFL. But he's got a solid combination of all three of those things and – most importantly – is a good route-runner with steady hands. Johnson has massive 10 and 3/8th-inch hands (95th percentile among WRs) and ranked first among all Vikings receivers with a catch percentage of 69 last year.

I can see Johnson carving out a long career as a possession receiver with some upside. For 2020, he's almost a sure thing to make the roster, it's just a question of whether or not he'll secure that WR3 job and the playing time that comes with it.

Why should the Minnesota Vikings remain calm when it comes to replacing Stefon Diggs?

Back in March, the Minnesota Vikings decided to trade Stefon Diggs to the Buffalo Bills. The Vikings pocketed a mini-haul of draft picks and notably used it to revamp–you guessed it–the wide receiver corps.

If one can make peace with the raw emotion of the organically-grown star switching teams, the doom-and-gloom thereafter is substantially lessened.

Oh, and this is not being proclaimed out of some opinion-based mindset of “everything is going to be okay.” This is more than rhetoric and reassurance. This is evidence-based and statistically driven.

The Buffalo Bills run schematically run a similar football team to the Minnesota Vikings. They run more than they pass. They play stout defense. They seem to prefer lower-scoring contests. This familiarity will either be an asset to Diggs–or it will again dampen his enthusiasm. We will find out.

As for the Minnesota Vikings, the team will not have a daunting problem replacing Diggs and we’re going to to a look why.

Diggs was not otherworldly

For the Minnesota Vikings, Diggs was very, very good. Diggs had great moments. He was not elite.

It can also be true that Diggs blossoms into a conversation with elite wide receivers in the Buffalo years. That’s speculatory, but it could happen. This would rely on logic that suggests Bills quarterback Josh Allen rapidly matures into a markedly more accurate passer. To do so would be a quick maturity, but again, it could happen.

Yet, the chances of both of these possibilities coming to fruition simultaneously are lukewarm, at best.

Why? Because Diggs’ statistical production through his first 70 games is on par with good wide receivers, not great wide receivers. Thru 70 games, Diggs has the following numbers to his name:

365 receptions
4,623 receiving yards
30 touchdowns

Here are some of his closest historical comparables:

Allen Robinson: 340 receptions, 4,625 receiving yards, 33 touchdowns
Keyshawn Johnson: 343 receptions, 4,602 receiving yards, 33 touchdowns
Hakeem Nicks: 311 receptions, 4,622 receiving yards, 27 touchdowns
Dwayne Bowe: 330 receptions 4,587 receiving yards, 35 touchdowns
Anthony Carter: 245 receptions, 4,525 receiving yards, 32 touchdowns
Darrell Jackson: 301 receptions, 4,511 receiving yards, 31 touchdowns

This is good company, but it’s not irreplaceable company.