Vikings Confident Of Retaining Cousins and Jefferson

The Minnesota Vikings are prepared to make wide receiver Justin Jefferson the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL.

That’s according to general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who says positive contract talks have taken place between the Vikings and Jefferson.

“We had a lot of great dialogue last offseason,” he said. “I think people forget, deals rarely happen after three years, and there is a reason for that.”

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“Two years left. There is uncertainty that somebody’s got to hold — either the club’s got to hold, or the player’s got to hold. There’s new money, old money. How do you look at contracts? Those are very hard conversations to have. So a lot of them don’t get done. We got unbelievably close.

“We’ve said it, and we’ll continue to say it: We think he’s the best wide receiver in the league and should be compensated as such,” Adofo-Mensa said. “We think he’s one of the best non-quarterbacks in the league and should be compensated as such. We’ll continue to have those dialogues and those conversations.”

As well as that, the Vikings believe they can persuade quarterback Kirk Cousins to stay. Cousins suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in October, and is about to be a free agent. 

“I believe Kirk wants to be a Viking, and we’re going to work to try and make that the outcome,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said.

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“We’ve won a lot of games over these two years with Kirk as our quarterback, and I thought he was playing as well as anyone in the National Football League when he got hurt after beating the Packers at Lambeau last year, coming off a Monday night win over the team that represented the NFC in the Super Bowl,” O’Connell added.