The Minnesota Vikings arrived at the NFL scouting combine on a mission, at least when it came to the media portion of the event. Beyond discussing the hiring of defensive coordinator Brian Flores and a host of impending salary cap cuts, the team’s leaders were determined to express how much they love receiver Justin Jefferson as negotiations for a contract extension loom.
“I don’t want to be the Vikings GM without this guy on our team,” general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said.
“One of my favorite players I’ve ever coached,” coach Kevin O’Connell said.
“When you have guys like that in your building,” Adofo-Mensah said, “[you] try everything you can to not let them out.”
Sometimes you’ll see an NFL team hold back its true feelings about a player in public to avoid influencing the negotiations. If Adofo-Mensah doesn’t want the job if Jefferson leaves, is there any price he wouldn’t agree to?
In the case of Jefferson, however, there’s no use in pretending. He earned All-Pro honors in 2022 at age 23 after leading the NFL in catches (128) and receiving yards (1,809) and built a case to be considered the NFL’s best receiver. The Vikings would be committing team-building malpractice if they didn’t plan to do everything imaginable to strike a deal.
For his part, Jefferson betrayed no hesitation about an eventual precedent-setting payday. Speaking in January, he said that a new deal “comes with the success” and added: “It’s not really something that I’m really worried about or I have my mind set on. It’s just really performing for my team, just doing whatever I need to do to get this team to where we want to go. But the money stuff, that comes with the job.”
The floor of negotiations is the $30 million annual value receiver Tyreek Hill got last spring as part of the trade that sent him from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Miami Dolphins. Assuming both sides accept that deal as a baseline, the more difficult part of the talks would be the length. A three-year, $95 million deal, for instance, would put Jefferson in position for a second payday at age 26, when most players are up for their first. Even a five-year, $165 million extension would give Jefferson another crack at new money at age 28.
The length of Jefferson’s deal would correlate with more than his next bite…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – NFL Nation…