Vikings’ Justin Jefferson will challenge the Eagles defense to find (and stop) him

While Nick Sirianni prepares for the Minnesota Vikings, he can’t help but think about the first time he saw Justin Jefferson play football.

The Eagles coach had just finished his second year as the Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator and was determined to watch a bigger swath of receiver and quarterback prospects after the 7-9 season.

He turned on the national championship game, hopeful to study some potential first-rounders. Even though he misremembered the team LSU played that night, Jefferson and the camera angle that confirmed Sirianni’s previous film study resonated with him.

“I remember putting on the tape and going, ‘Man, this Justin Jefferson guy is really, really good,’” Sirianni said Thursday. “Like he’s really quick. He’s got great hands. He runs really good routes. It made the game a little bit more enjoyable for me. I put the game on, we’re watching the game ... and he catches the ball and he puts his foot in the ground quick and you get the zoom up of it on the TV camera and it was like, ‘OK, he’s exactly what I thought. He does have all that quickness.’ That close-up view really helped me learn that.”

Sirianni will get another close-up view of Jefferson on Monday night at Lincoln Financial Field. The third-year receiver has become one of the best players in the league since going 22nd overall in the 2019 NFL draft. He finished last season with 108 catches for 1,616 yards and 10 touchdowns.

“He’s a dude,” Eagles cornerback Darius Slay said. “Great route-runner, great after the catch, he’s strong at the finish. Playmaker, man. He makes plays. He’s a different breed. Them LSU receivers been panning out real well.”

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Jefferson is coming off a dominant Week 1 performance against the Green Bay Packers in which he had nine catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns. He had several explosive plays down the field, most of which came on deep crossing routes against the Packers’ zone defense.

Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon also employs a heavy amount of zone. To avoid the same fate Green Bay’s secondary suffered, the Eagles’ secondary will have to be on the same page passing off receivers. The Eagles reworked their secondary in the offseason, adding veteran cornerback James Bradberry via free agency and trading for safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson earlier this month.

“We have to make sure we’re executing,” Eagles safety Marcus Epps said. “We need to make sure we’re seeing our right keys, matching coverages the right way, things like that. Definitely when you’re playing a player like that, you have to make sure you’re on point on the back end.”

Under first-year head coach Kevin O’Connell, formerly the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator, Jefferson moves around the formation more than he did last season. On Jefferson’s 11 targets against the Packers, four came when he was the “Z” receiver off the line of scrimmage, three came when he lined up as the “X” receiver on the line, three came when he was in the slot, and one came when he was in the backfield.

He did damage from three of the four alignments. He caught three passes out of the slot for 91 yards, three passes out of the “Z” alignment for 36 yards and a touchdown, and had two catches for 57 yards and a touchdown as an “X” receiver. He caught one pass out of the backfield for no gain.

“He can beat you all different types of ways,” Gannon said. “When you’re looking at his game, he’s not a one-dimensional guy. He can take the roof off, he can beat you underneath, he can beat you with yards after catch.”

“They do a really good job of deploying him different ways. So it’s hard to have a plan for him to always have two guys on him. It’s going to be a good challenge for us, and we’ll be up for it.”

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Even though the Eagles are a zone-heavy team under Gannon, there have been occasions when Slay has followed No. 1 receivers to match up in man coverage throughout the game. The 31-year-old corner developed a reputation for sticking top wideouts earlier in his career, but it might not be an option for the Eagles because of Jefferson’s varied alignments.

For Bradberry, studying the routes Jefferson typically runs from each alignment is the difference-maker this week.

“For me specifically, I just try to learn the route concepts from where he lines up,” he said. “If he ends up in the slot, I try to learn what’s his route tree from there. If he ends up outside, I try to learn what his route tree is from there.”

Slay said he’s not worried about Jefferson matching up against Bradberry or slot cornerback Avonte Maddox.

“It doesn’t matter,” Slay said. “We could do whatever we need. We got a great nickel, we got great safeties, and a great other [outside] corner, so we could do whatever.”

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday