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Kevin Seifert, ESPN editor
If there was any doubt about Vikings‘plans for the All-Pro receiver Justin Jeffersonwho became eligible for a contract extension after completing his third season in the NFL, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah made things clearer Tuesday.
“I don’t want to be the general manager of the Vikings without this guy on our team,” Adofo-Mensah said while speaking to reporters at the NFL combine. “So it’s a high priority. We need to make sure we do it in the order that we can do it, obviously, given all of our other decisions that we have to make.”
Jefferson, 24, led the NFL in 2022 with 128 receptions for 1,809 yards, the sixth-highest single-season yardage total in NFL history. His 4,825 career yards are the most ever for a receiver in the first three seasons of a career. But he has always played down the possibility of a massive contract extension, since last summer when he said: “I don’t really like money.”
Asked in January about the possibility of a new contract, Jefferson said: “I mean, if it happens, it comes. It comes with success. It’s not really something that I’m really worried about or I think. “
When asked at the time if he deserved to be the highest-paid receiver in the NFL, Jefferson replied, “It’s not my decision.” an extension this year. It’s like that. It’s not really something that really worries me. »
Adofo-Mensah indicated, however, that the Vikings will do everything they can — when they can — to get a deal done this offseason.
“He’s trying to put the Minnesota Vikings on his back,” Adofo-Mensah said. “He wants to win a championship. When you have people like that in your building, you do everything you can to not let them out.”
Meanwhile, Adofo-Mensah did not respond directly when asked if he was a running back. Dalvin Cookwho has a $14.1 million salary cap hit for 2023, would remain on the roster.
“In the NFL, there’s a lot of constraints and salary cap and different things, and we’re trying to figure out how we can operate in those areas,” Adofo-Mensah said. “But we always start with a great player, a great leader, and we’ll go from there.”
Adofo-Mensah spoke more positively about the defensive tackle’s return Dalvin Tomlinson. The sides recently agreed to push back the termination date of Tomlinson’s contract to March 15, according to ESPN’s Field Yates.
“We love Dalvin,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Any time you have good players in your building, good people, you want to do everything you can to keep him. Obviously we have a lot of decisions to make, so we’re trying to buy ourselves a little more time , but… …he’s a great guy, a great player and we love him.”
