Justin Jefferson sets Vikings’ regular season single-game receiving yards record

It got lost in the disappointment of Sunday’s loss to the Detroit Lions, but Justin Jefferson once again etched his name into the Minnesota Vikings’ record books.

With his 223 yards receiving at Ford Field in the 34-23 loss, Jefferson set a new Vikings record for receiving yardage in a regular season game. The previous record was held by Sammy White, who put up 210 yards in a victory over Detroit at Metropolitan Stadium back in 1976, his rookie season.

It’s not the all-time single-game receiving record for the Vikings, however, even though Jefferson came close. That record still belongs to Anthony Carter and his 227 yards in the Vikings’ improbable victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the 1987 Divisional Playoffs.

Jefferson did get credit for 11 extra receiving yards when the Vikings tried to run the Annexation of Puerto Rico on the game’s final play, but he had the record secured before that.

The 223 yards that Jefferson put up today gives him exactly 1,500 yards on the season with four games remaining. That means that he’s 116 yards away from his single-season high, which he set last year, and 132 yards away from Randy Moss’ Vikings’ single-season record.

It also makes the math for Jefferson’s quest for 2,000 yards very easy to figure out. He has to average 125 yards a game over the season’s final four weeks to be the first wide receiver in NFL history to go over the 2,000-yard mark. Counting Sunday’s game, Jefferson has gone over the 125-yard mark six times this season, including eclipsing that figure against Green Bay and Chicago, both of whom the Vikings will face over the season’s final four weeks.

So, even if it did come in a fairly embarrassing loss, Justin Jefferson has nothing to be embarrassed about. Congratulations to him on putting up yet another Vikings record in his young career.