Will the Bears Try To Snuff Out Jefferson Again?

Justin Jefferson has seen the tape and probably wants to burn it.

When the Minnesota Vikings played at Soldier Field in Week 12, the Chicago Bears elected to take Jefferson out of the game. Chicago held Jefferson to 27 yards on two receptions, but it cost them the game. Jordan Addison went off for 162 yards, and T.J. Hockenson tacked on 114.

Minnesota won 30-27 but should have beaten them by more. Still, Jefferson didn’t love his lack of involvement in the game. “I always want to have an impact on the game,” he told the Star Tribune. “It’s frustrating at times. But we got the win, and that’s all that matters.”

Chicago messed around and found out, but they may meddle with Jefferson’s mettle again. Addison, Hockenson, and Aaron Jones are offensive weapons. The Vikings can win games where Jefferson doesn’t produce because of his gravity. However, Jefferson is closing on Ja'Marr Chase for the NFL’s yardage leader. He wants to have 100 receiving yards in every game.

“Every person wants to be the No. 1 guy,” said Jefferson, who was teammates with Chase at LSU. “For it to be Ja’Marr is always something special for the two guys that played on the same team, that's No. 1 and 2 in the league. That's always gonna be special to think about and look at.

“There's four games left. There's time for me to still get in that lead,” Jefferson added. “It always will be a competition between us. We always want to be the best.”

The Bears have a new coaching staff and will probably take a different approach. They fired Matt Eberflus after he mismanaged the clock on Thanksgiving, replacing him with Thomas Brown. However, Eberflus is a former defensive coordinator. While he wasn’t a good head coach, he’s a defensive mastermind. Therefore, Brown may draw from Eberflus’ blueprint to try to contain Jefferson.

“It all depends on what do they rather?” avers Jefferson. “Do they rather me go off? Or do they rather Jordan Addison and T.J., A.J. to go off? That's something that they have to choose.

“I'm pretty sure that they're going to pick the second option than the first. That's what most people do.”

Addison had his best game of the year in Chicago, and he’s coming off a 133-yard game against the Atlanta Falcons. Hockenson had played less than 50% of snaps in his first three games back from injury. However, he played 68% against the Bears in Week 12 and at least 60% in his last three games.

Hockenson said he feels back to full speed after missing almost half a year following knee surgery. “In the last few weeks, I'm not really thinking about anything out there,” he said. “I'm not really thinking about leverages. I'm just playing and kind of doing that kind of stuff.”

He said the Vikings take pride in having so many options on offense.

“I mean, that's a good offense,” said Hockenson. “That means a defense can't come in one game and say, ‘If we shut these guys down or this guy down, then we'll win the game.’ That's a lot of the time, for me being on this side of it, if we shut down one guy, make the rest beat us.”

Even with all the attention on Jefferson, he has found a way to get open. After Sam Darnold’s mad-scramble 52-yard touchdown pass to Jefferson last week, NFL Films

Jefferson went to Destrehan High School outside New Orleans, and he remembers getting loose against Mandeville as a freshman. “But the dude fell,” Jefferson qualified, referring to old friend Mike Hughes, who plays for the Falcons. “I caught it, and he fell down, and I just ran into the end zone. So, it was different. I was just flat-out wide open.

“That hasn't happened to me in a while.”

It took a herculean effort from Darnold, but Jefferson finally sprung loose. It’s the kind of play you want to watch on repeat. Jefferson undoubtedly has saved that tape.

After Chicago clamped down on him in Week 12, he’s itching to create another highlight reel. However, he’ll need some help from Darnold and the rest of Minnesota’s offensive weapons to burn the Bears in their rematch.