Justin Jefferson is now the highest paid nonquarterback in NFL history. This is always where the Minnesota Vikings’ organization was going to have to go in order to secure him for the long term, and to its credit, the team arrived there before public acrimony of a training camp holdout. We’ll get to that and much more below.
Here are a handful of thoughts on the deal.
The Vikings have been one of the few NFL teams that have doled out fully guaranteed contracts in the past. Jefferson has an excellent cash flow structure in this deal, with $125.73 million coming to him over the four years of the contract, which he will almost certainly see. However, I wonder whether it was worth tightening the screws and forcing the Vikings to fully guarantee—and not just practically guarantee—every dollar of the four years of that extension.
