Really, you could pick out any of Justin Jefferson’s 10 catches from Sunday. There was the 46-yarder on the Vikings’ third snap, followed by a 22-yard touchdown three plays after that on which he bodied up Bills corner Dane Jackson and boxed him out for the score. There was, of course, the impossible fourth-and-18 grab in the fourth quarter, a one-handed catch for the ages, pulled in despite a safety putting two hands on the ball. Then, you have the third-and-10 catch in overtime that put Minnesota on the goal line.
But there was only one play Jefferson made at Highmark Stadium over those three hours that his coach, Kevin O’Connell, would raise repeatedly to me, as he stood in the biting, 25-degree air on the tarmac at the Buffalo airport, waiting to board the flight back to Minneapolis. And chances are, if you had 10 guesses, you probably wouldn’t guess where this one came from—with the Vikings down by 17 and less than 17 minutes left in regulation.
“We just kept looking at it like, if we can just start chipping away …” O’Connell says. “Then, we get that 81-yard touchdown run. On a day when we felt like we would have to run the football, we didn’t get off to a great start running it. We wanted to come back to the run and kind of try to sustain some drives that way. So for Dalvin [Cook], to make that run at that moment?
“And very few people will talk about it with some of the other plays that he made in that game, but Justin Jefferson blocking the safety on that play and springing that? That was a huge moment for Justin in the game. And then he followed that up by putting an exclamation point on it with some once-in-a-long-time catches and fourth-down plays and third-and-longs, and you just can’t say enough about him.”
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O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who arrived in tandem last winter, have told anyone who’d listen for months how much they love the locker room they inherited, both for its talent and its intangibles. That’s why there was never a need for the standard new coach/GM teardown. Instead, the two kept doubling down on what Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman left them, never wavering, tempting as it might’ve been to find their own guys.
The result is a team that’s now 8–1. And much as it’s 8–1 because of plays you’ll remember, like the ones Jefferson made during a 33–30 overtime win over Buffalo, it’s also because of the stuff you didn’t see. That is why O’Connell brought Jefferson’s block up to me on three different occasions.
“This one’s gonna take time for me to unpack,” O’Connell says. “There are a lot of little things that I can go back and look at. There’s a lot of ways that I’ll look inward first and try to improve as either a play-caller or the head coach of this team, but the one thing that I can rest easy knowing is that I got the right guys. I love this team.”
And in the game of the year, that team delivered for its coach in ways both big and small.
Week 10 had plenty more drama. Which gives us plenty to get to in this week’s MMQB package, including …
• In Three Deep, a look at Christian Watson’s breakout performance (finally!) at Lambeau, as well as the Colts’ upset of the Raiders in Las Vegas, and what Jeff Saturday’s arrival as their coach means about where the profession itself might be headed.
• In Ten Takeaways, the continued perseverance of Ryan Tannehill and the Titans, the Buccaneers taking their revival overseas and a whole lot more.
• In Six From Saturday, more on where the quarterbacks eligible for the 2023 and ’24 drafts stand as the college season winds down.
But we’re starting with all the drama that unfolded in Western New York.
Trust me when I say I’m not minimizing the spectacular individual acts we witnessed Sunday, and in particular the one Jefferson pulled off that seemed, well, impossible.
Because that particular play really did have it all, and I do realize that, 10 years from now, when the impact of the rest of Sunday’s game has faded away, the brilliance of Jefferson’s catch will still burn bright. (After all, does anyone remember anything about the 2014 Sunday Night Football game between the Giants and Cowboys, other than one play?) And rightfully so.
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It happened on a fourth-and-18. At that point, the Vikings were down by four, and the ball was snapped from their own 27 right after the two-minute warning. Minnesota had one timeout left. That means, best case, if Jefferson doesn’t come down with the ball in that spot, more than 30 yards downfield, Buffalo is probably able to run it under 30 seconds, kick a field goal to push the lead the seven, and give the Vikings a full field to drive without a timeout left.
Essentially, if Jefferson doesn’t make the catch, the game is over, and O’Connell knows it.
“And I told Kirk [Cousins] in the moment, Hey, I want to give Justin a chance here,” O’Connell says. “So I put him in the slot there, he got a great release off the line, and it was … Hey, we’re going to give our guy a chance here.
“We had a concept right there where if Justin could get a release, he would at least have a chance at a 50-50 type of ball. He got off the line real well, pushed vertical, and I give Kirk so much credit for trusting him just to put it up in that moment and allowing your best player to go make a play.”
If you saw the catch itself, in real time, you might’ve been fooled at first to think Bills DB Cam Lewis came away with a pick. After all, Lewis had both his hands on the ball, high-pointing the shot Cousins gave Jefferson, and Jefferson could only get his right hand on it as he bent back. Then, somehow, Jefferson was able to muscle the ball away from Lewis, simultaneously keeping it from hitting the ground, even as it got to within inches of the fake grass in Orchard Park.
If you want to compare it to the Odell Beckham Jr. catch of 2014, you can—and remember, as Spider-Manish as that unbelievable grab was, Beckham didn’t have another player with his hands on the ball as he made it, as Jefferson did.
Beckham’s catch also came in a loss, whereas Jefferson’s catch assured this wouldn’t be one for Minnesota.
The Vikings didn’t wind up scoring on that drive. But getting the ball to the 1 put the Bills in the position where they couldn’t kneel on it to end the game after making a massive goal-line stand. Which, of course, led to more hell breaking loose.
When this one was over, it was hard to really organize all the big plays that happened. There was Dalvin Cook’s 81-yard touchdown run off left tackle that cut the Bills’ lead to 27–17. Then, Stefon Diggs’s wild 25-yard catch on third-and-15 to spark a march deep into Vikings territory. There was a Patrick Peterson interception on fourth-and-2 that stopped that march. Then, a Kirk Cousins–T.J. Hockenson connection on a fourth-and-6 on the next possession to set up another Minnesota touchdown.
Jefferson’s catch followed that. The drive ended on the Bills’ 1, where the Vikings were stopped, which gave way to Josh Allen’s fumbling a snap in the end zone, and the Vikings covering it to take their first lead since the first quarter, at 30–27 with 41 seconds left. Then came a five-play, 69-yard drive, with a controversial 20-yard catch (non-catch?) by Gabe Davis helping get the Bills into field goal range to tie it with five seconds left.
In overtime, there was a dime Cousins dealt to Jefferson for 24 yards to get the Vikings to the Bills’ 2, then another Buffalo goal-line stand to force a field goal and get Allen another possession. And then another long Allen drive ended on a Peterson pick near the goal line.
“It really was as unique of a football game as I’ve been around,” O’Connell says. “I think the best part about it for me was feeling the same confidence that I’ve felt from our team in a lot of wins that we’ve either come from behind in or found ways to win throughout these eight games that we’ve won. This one was just probably a little bit more unique.”
The reason why was the simple volume of critical plays that both the Vikings and Bills encountered, with the latter entering this bout as a confirmed NFL heavyweight, and the former continuing to try to punch its way into that class. To get there, O’Connell—who was hired off a Rams staff that rode Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey to a Lombardi Trophy last year—knew he’d need his best players in the ring.
And did they ever climb into it. Jefferson, perhaps the NFL’s best receiver (Tyreek Hill has a heck of an argument there, too), had the gloves on, and he wasn’t the only one.
• Cook’s run came when the reality was that the Vikings were teetering on the verge of getting blown out of the building by perhaps the NFL’s most imposing bully—down 17, with 16:46 left, and the ball on their own 19. It also represented that, at that point, it really was all hands on deck.
“It was a pretty standard call for us,” O’Connell says. “But in that moment, to have that level of elite execution—Garrett Bradbury and Ezra Cleveland with the front-side combination, running at Christian Darrisaw, who’s been one of the best left tackles in football this year, and then doing it out of 12 personnel with Hockenson and Johnny Mundt in there, and then, Dalvin Cook with a head of steam and then Justin Jefferson leading him.
“A lot of receivers in this league don’t always do those things on every snap. And for him to show up in a moment like that, the team needed it. Nobody’s going to be talking about that block, but he was willing to go in there and be the determining factor to give Dalvin that edge.”
Cook went 81 yards. Game on.
• The truth is, if it weren’t for Eric Kendricks, that run, and Jefferson’s wild catch, would’ve gone for naught. Because when Allen lost the snap with 49 seconds left—all Allen had to do was keep the ball out of the end zone and in the Bills’ possession and the game was over—someone had to dive on it. That someone, it turned out, would be the Vikings’ 30-year-old All-Pro linebacker.
“We practiced that play,” O’Connell says. “We know they can’t take a knee. It seems like a small thing, but the details of being able to penetrate those gaps and if the ball ends up on the ground, Eric Kendricks—like he’s always going to be—is right there to capitalize.”
We’ll have more on that one in a minute. For now, though, Kendricks simply knowing the situation and being where he was supposed to be, the kind of small thing that can become huge, did more than bring the Vikings back to life. It gave them the lead.
• And even with all of that accounted for, if not for Peterson, left for dead as an elite corner years ago by the NFL Intelligentsia, the Vikings are probably still going home 7–2.
His first big splash came with Buffalo’s ill-fated decision to go for it on fourth-and-2, up 27–17, when he picked off Allen in the end zone and ran the ball back 39 yards to the Vikings’ 34, giving the offense manageable field position for the 13-play, 66-yard touchdown drive to follow. His second—the game-clincher—looked similar to the first. With the Bills in second-and-10 from the Vikings’ 20 (easy field goal range for Tyler Bass), Peterson, again, got Allen in the red zone, driving on a ball intended for Davis inside the 5 and picking it.
“He made that play in a quarters alignment,” O’Connell says. “They’re trying to attack that coverage, and he’s able to understand how much space there was and undercut that route and make a play on the football. What he’s done in our scheme is he’s really applied all of his experience of being a top-tier corner in this league for a long time. I do believe he still is. He’s applied all that experience to this and to playing in this scheme now.
“And he’s leading in a way where he’s one of the huge reasons we’re 8–1 and he’ll continue to set the standard for our team as far as being a professional, and trying to bring his teammates along with him. I’m so proud of Pat.”
As you can tell, O’Connell’s proud of a lot of people.
Mark Konezny/AP
Maybe Kendricks stood out to O’Connell because he got a little less attention than Jefferson did coming out of this, or maybe it’s because he’s one of the guys many figured would be jettisoned with a regime change. Whatever the reason, as the coach saw it, the play his star linebacker made to save the Vikings in the fourth quarter really said it all about what he and Adofo-Mensah are trying to build—and why this was never going to be a teardown.
“That’s exactly the point I was trying to make to you this summer, is having a guy like that, guys like him, that you can count on, it changes the dynamic for a young, first-year head coach when you’re hunting a player-led culture with accountability and a connected team,” O’Connell says. “You rely on those guys. And I do, every single week. I rely on those guys. I have so much confidence that they’re going to be right there alongside of me and our coaching staff, pushing our team to try to improve and be at our best when it’s required.
“And we’re still getting better every single week. We will continue to work at becoming the best possible team we can be this year; and there’s a lot still out in front of us.”
It’s in front of them, too, with names familiar to Minnesotans, like Cousins, Jefferson, Adam Thielen, Darrisaw, Danielle Hunter, Kendricks and Harrison Smith, guys acquired by Spielman and Zimmer, and now built around by Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell.
Plenty of those guys remember what it was like when the new guys came in, that there’d be a reckoning and a rebuild. They’ve also heard, of late, the questions about how far they’ve really come, as if the 4½-game lead over the rest of the NFC North is a mirage, and as if playoff wins for a good percentage of those guys in both 2017 and ’19 never happened. Sunday, it turned out, was their latest response to all that.
“We talk about being at our best when it’s required and being a fourth-quarter team,” O’Connell says. “I just watched a team that relied on what we’re made of. And that’s obviously our leadership, that’s obviously our playmakers, and then it’s being connected, and it’s always going to be to lean on the guy next to you in those moments. It may not always work out. But we’re going to stay true to who we are, and in the end, we’re going to continue to improve. And we’ll see where this thing goes, man.”
That game in Buffalo showed it has already come a long way. And there’s definitely more than one way to describe just how the Vikings, and their star receiver, got here.
