You won’t get much pushback if you argue that Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings is the NFL’s best receiver today, but Jefferson had a devil of a time against the Philadelphia Eagles and cornerback Darius Slay in Week 2 of the 2022 season. Jefferson caught six passes on 12 targets for 48 yards, and Slay caught two of Kirk Cousins’ passes to Jefferson in a 24-7 Eagles win.
Now, these two teams have a rematch on Thursday night Football, and the Slay-Jefferson matchup is fascinating for all kinds of reasons. Slay did what most cornerbacks can’t do — he picked up on Jefferson’s tells and leverage, and used it all against him.
“When you’re a young and talented guy, man, you think everything works,” Slay later explained on the “All Things Covered” podcast with Bryant McFadden and Patrick Peterson. “I’ve played this game so long — I know what you’re gonna do. I know your tendencies, I know what you like the most,” Slay said. “He had a lot of tales for me to steal on film. Young guys don’t see, but I see that because I like to watch film a lot. Every tale I did was truthful.
“The first pass breakup I had, it made me confirm that’s what he does. That early? It’s gonna be a long night for anybody. No matter what type of talent you have or how much better you feel like you are than me, that means I really got your tale on what you do.
“What I watched on film and what I watch how his release is… that’s why I made the plays I did.”
Slay’s first deflection of a Jefferson target came with 7:48 left in the first quarter, and you can see that as soon as Jefferson established his intent to go to the boundary with his release, Slay countered with sticky inside leverage that wasn’t affected by Jefferson’s quick comeback — even when Slay stumbled at the top of the route for a millisecond.
“I’m a guy that just needs to determine whether a guy does an outside release or inside release,” Slay concluded. “From what I watched from Jefferson, he had certain releases that he liked to do. I just knew for a fact that most likely a lot of his routes were inside breaking routes — just because the team does inside breaking routes.
“If you watch the Rams, they do a lot of inside breaking routes. When he takes an inside release, there’s a good chance he’s going to do an inside route. I just knew that off the splits, so I kind of got a little ahead of the game.”
That understanding of tendencies allowed Slay to run Jefferson’s route better than Jefferson did on Slay’s first interception with 10:01 left in the third quarter. Slay basically put himself where Kirk Cousins thought his receiver would be, and Jefferson was the odd man out — quite literally.
Slay’s second interception of the day, which came with 7:16 left in the fourth quarter, came from a similar construct — when Jefferson made it clear he was going outside on the fade ball, Slay knew exactly where he was supposed to be.
As Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup said on this week’s “Xs and Os” video, there are different aspects to the matchup this time around than there were before. But the real question is, will Slay travel with Jefferson wherever he goes on the field?
“Well, you might see it,” Greg said. “I’ll just say this — this was a year ago, and while we knew that Jefferson was good, he wasn’t quite Justin Jefferson yet. I’m not saying that Slay can’t cover him, and I think he certainly will when he lines up outside. The thing is, as last year progressed, Jefferson really moved around a lot. He was targeted 181 times, and 58 of those targets came out of the slot. where he was really, really good. They’re not just going to say, ‘Hey, line up outside and let Darius Slay travel with you from side to side.’
“The question is, what happens when Jefferson lines up in the slot, which he will? While the Eagles will play man coverage, I wouldn’t say that they’re a high-percentage man coverage defense. They have a new defensive coordinator in Sean Desai, and there was no receiver the qualify of Jefferson when the Eagles played the Patriots last week, so you don’t know what Sean Desai will do against this quality of receiver? He’s a little bit from the Fangio school, and normally, they don’t follow receivers.”
Last season, the Eagles under defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon played their outside cornerbacks on specific sides of the field on 65% of the team’s defensive snaps, which ranked 21st in the NFL. But the Seattle Seahawks, where Desai was the assistant head coach and defensive assistant last season, kept their cornerbacks on one side of the field 90% of the time, which ranked third. So, maybe don’t expect the Eagles to have Slay travel with Jefferson, even with fellow outside cornerback James Bradberry out for this game with a concussion. Most likely, it will be undrafted second-year man Josh Jobe as Slay’s bookend.
Against that kind of strategy, it would behoove Vikings head coach and offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell to use pre-snap motion to displace Philly’s defense by moving Jefferson around the formation to the Eagles’ defensive disadvantage. The Vikings have done it before — last season, as the target in motion, Jefferson caught 12 passes on 19 routes run for 140 yards, 86 air yards, and two touchdowns.
Perhaps the Vikings can mitigate Slay’s impressive retention of Jefferson’s tells by moving him across the formation, especially in the red zone. That happened in the wild-card round against the New York Giants last season for a near-touchdown.
No matter where Slay is on the field, and no matter whether he follows Jefferson or not, the Vikings would be well-served by putting their best offensive player on the move pre-snap to further weaponize his superior skill set.
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