‘Receiver’ shows Vikings’ Justin Jefferson had serious injuries in 2023

Early in Episode 3 of the Netflix documentary “Receiver,” Justin Jefferson is driving to the Minnesota Vikings‘ practice facility. It’s a sunny fall morning, not long after he suffered a right hamstring injury that put him on injured reserve.

In an audio overlay, reporters discuss whether Jefferson could milk the injury for leverage in contract negotiations. Absent a new deal, the idea went, Jefferson might be wise to sit out the team’s remaining 12 games to eliminate the chance of further injury before his big payday.

A serious visage crossed Jefferson’s face, a glower that overcame his normally joyous expression. The message was not subtle.

“No one, no one, no one in this game,” he said, repeating for emphasis, “can ever tell me to not play or to tank the season or to do any of that other stuff because I’m not that type of person. I want to play. I love the game of football. I want to be the best. In order for that to happen, I’ve got to be out there on that field. … There’s no prolonging the injury, there’s no, ‘Oh he’s sitting out because of the contract. It’s not any of that. At all.”

Soon, we learn medical details that were not clear to the public at the time. Jefferson had felt a pop at the time of the injury, and Tyler Williams — the Vikings’ vice president of player health and performance — termed its severity “high grade.” That was likely a reference to the type of strain in which the muscle tears completely. The typical timetable for recovery in such injuries, Williams told Netflix, is 8 to 10 weeks.

That information was the unseen but factual backdrop for an unfortunate period when some fans and media members questioned Jefferson’s commitment to returning as quickly as possible. The Vikings opened his practice window 31 days after the injury, and he returned to practice on a limited basis. Without the full set of facts, it was reasonable to wonder why he did not resume playing soon after. Another 32 days passed before that happened, and in total Jefferson’s recovery was a nine-week process that spanned seven games and a bye.

In reality, of course, he was moving on a standard timetable for the injury he suffered, one designed to allow for maximum healing and minimum chance of re-injury.

Once he returned, Jefferson made it through 13 plays before taking a direct hit to the back from Las Vegas Raiders safety Marcus Epps. Again, “Receiver” provides crucial and previously unknown context. Upon returning to the huddle, Jefferson was coughing oddly. He walked to the sideline, kneeled and began spitting blood. Alarmed medical staff members asked him if he had perhaps bitten his tongue, creating a source of bleeding. He had not.

Required by the NFL to announce the part of the body affected in their in-game injury report, the Vikings said Jefferson had a chest injury. As he continued to spit out blood in the blue medical tent, a Vikings doctor landed on a more specific diagnosis. Jefferson had suffered a “pulmonary contusion,” in essence a bruised lung.

An exam at a local hospital revealed Jefferson had not broken any ribs, nor did he have a more serious injury such as a collapsed lung. The bruise itself was manageable, Jefferson was told. He practiced with what he later called an “internal bruise” and played all but three of the Vikings’ offensive plays in their next game, six days later at Cincinnati.

The upshot here is that Jefferson, who hadn’t missed a game because of injury since high school, suffered two serious maladies in 2023, and the details dominated his turn in the ensemble narrative of “Receiver.” Certainly they were the most relevant and dramatic moments of an otherwise disappointing year, and in Episode 6, Jefferson lamented that they overshadowed a late-season surge that put him over the 1,000-yard mark in his 10-game season.

But the emphasis also pushed back on any doubts regarding the way Jefferson handled himself, his motivation to play and the role that his contract negotiations — which had been put on hold before the season, but culminated this spring with a four-year extension worth $140 million — played in determining his return.

A cynic might consider this all an exercise in revisionist history, but there is no reason to doubt the details as presented in the documentary. They comport with contemporaneous indications that the Vikings would likely use all of the available practice time to ramp him up before the expiration of the window.

The NFL has a long history of providing minimal injury information on players because of a desire for uniformity of information across 32 teams and for other, less noble reasons. Most teams prefer not to give their opponents information that could help them plan for an upcoming game, and in some cases, there can be fear of an injury being targeted by opponents.

On a relative scale, the Vikings were transparent on Jefferson’s progress. Their practice reports, which listed his participation as “limited” until the week he returned, were a reliable guidepost.

But Jefferson still heard the public questioning, and based on the expression on his face in Episode 3, he wasn’t happy about it. Consider the record amended, once and for all.