Justin Jefferson signed up for this moment

EAGAN – In the empty practice facility at the TCO Performance Center, Justin Jefferson stands before a handful of media members in sweatpants, a hoodie and his fuzzy slippers. In the fifth year of these weekly press conferences with Jefferson, we have reached the point where each side knows what is coming. He will go into how he expects opponents to protect him and how big the game is. Maybe he'll be asked to comment on an upcoming record or an event he attended (he was excited about the Lynx playoff run two weeks ago), and eventually we'll run out of questions and go back to his business after.

Every now and then he might casually drop some trash talk, but he says it so playfully and casually that no one can convert it into bulletin board material. And what exactly do you do with that material if he's always the best player on the field? When he said he would do the Griddy in Lambeau, everyone shrugged their shoulders because they assumed he probably would. And then he did it.

But this week Jefferson had something different to talk about than in previous years: His 5-0 team is heading into the biggest game of their season so far.

In his last four seasons, his teams have never been in this position before. In his rookie year, the Vikings started 1-4. As a sophomore, the score was 2-3 at the time. In 2022, they were 4-1, but picked up three narrow wins against mediocre teams and were still considered true contenders. Last year they went 1-4 again. This time around, the Vikings lead the NFL in point differential. And while the last two games were technically narrowly won, that was only because of the teams' late attacks that blew up.

Moving to 6-0 with a win over Detroit would raise eyebrows that the Vikings are the team to beat in the NFC and possibly the entire league. It would put them in a position where they haven't been franchised since 2009.

This is the moment Jefferson has been waiting for. This is the vision he committed to when he signed the extension. He put up big numbers at US Bank Stadium and played Griddy many times, but he was rarely favored at home against an opponent considered a Super Bowl favorite. This week, the Vikings are favorites against the NFL leaders by 1.5 points per game.

“It’s a division game and I know how important it is,” Jefferson said.

Jefferson certainly made the most of his games against Detroit. In fact, he has left a trail of sad cornerbacks searching for answers game after game. Jefferson is averaging 134 yards per game against Detroit for his career, which translates to 2,278 yards in 17 games.

When asked if he enjoyed playing against the Lions, he laughed for about 10 seconds before giving a non-disrespectful answer. But he knows it.

But somehow these games against the Lions haven't resulted in wins to the extent one would expect. His 18 catches for 333 yards and two touchdowns were a success last year when the Vikings lost both games to Dan Campbell's temperamental club. In 2022, the Vikings won the first game against Detroit and then Jefferson went crazy in a huge Week 13 matchup as the Vikings tried to win the conference. He managed 223 yards and it could have been more if he hadn't been unfairly called out of bounds. They lost 34-23.

“Even the way I played and unfortunately still got a loss, that’s the hard part,” Jefferson said. “So, you know, I just try to do the best I can, I just try to be the best I can be for this team. This time I definitely have to come up with a (win).”

The 5-0 start to this season was even better than the best scenario the Vikings could have imagined at the start of the season. A win against the Lions could potentially push them further than before with Jefferson as a superstar.

“I always love these types of games, the games that you need the most and that are important… whenever those games are in front of me, I like to make the most of them,” Jefferson said.

While the star receiver has never caused a stir through the ups and downs like some of his peers, there is a different nuance to his behavior in 2024. As a young player with an experienced quarterback when he came into the league, he was able to do his job and let Cousins ​​do the rest. Now Jefferson is a veteran player that everyone considers the centerpiece of the team. For the past two years, even after he signed his contract extension, head coach Kevin O'Connell has urged him to take the reins and lead the franchise to where he wants it to be.

“You can clearly see it in that reception room,” O'Connell said of Jefferson's leadership. “I remember the time Speedy (Jalen Nailor) scored a touchdown early in the season. Everybody saw (Jefferson) celebrating and he was the most excited guy on the team… And right at that point the next week, you see him put his arm around Jordan (Addison) as he's working through the ankle and he gets it. He understands his role. He's been through a lot in this league, especially last year… I think he just understands everything about what it means to be a leader in this league, and now he's doing that even more throughout our football team.”

Making the most of this weekend's game and coming away with a win would be a little more comfortable for Jefferson given the way the offseason has gone. Rather than fight his way through the media or fight the team for a contract extension in the middle of training camp, he signed before minicamp and immediately went to work with Sam Darnold. Talk hosts and analysts wondered whether he would be happy without his veteran quarterback or whether he would soon demand a trade since the Vikings were only expected to win six or seven.

Those who inquired may not have noticed that he racked up 476 yards in the final four games of the season without Cousins ​​in 2023. Or they may have missed out on the other parts of the roster that were expanded due to a manageable QB contract and salary cap.

But it was certainly an adjustment without the QB he played with for the first four seasons of his career. During training camp, Jefferson repeatedly told Darnold to trust him. There were good days and rough days in the summer, but in the end they seemed to be on the same level. In Week 2, that came to fruition as the veteran quarterback saw the results of that trust as he found Jefferson for a 97-yard touchdown en route to the win against the San Francisco 49ers.

Darnold's presence has given us something new to throw at Jefferson at his weekly press conferences. How is the chemistry? What do you think of his arm? And Jefferson talks about Darnold the same way he used to talk about Kirk. This is his guy now.

Jefferson was asked in this week's session what surprised him about Darnold during the Vikings' hot start to the season.

“Honestly, nothing surprised me,” Jefferson said. “Exactly the way he comes to work every day. His preparation and leadership is something we see every day and something we saw in training camp before the season even started. This is something that will be new for everyone else, but not new for us. So we're still working on that. He's still trying to figure out what the potential is and what the potential is for him to play. We’re still figuring things out, but the ceiling for him is definitely high.”

We're all still trying to figure out the upper limit of this thing too. The 5-0 Vikings, led by Jefferson, can prove there are no limits with a win against the Lions. This is exactly what Jefferson has been striving for since his arrival.