Nine of the NFL’s top 10 wide receivers in yards led their teams to the playoffs last season. Chicago’s D.J. Moore was the only exception at No. 6.
The NFL’s top eight scoring offenses, and 12 of the top 15, all played in the postseason.
The only playoff teams without a top 15 offense were the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had a top 10 receiver in Mike Evans, and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Eight of the 12 high-powered playoff offenses featured a top 10 receiver, including the Miami Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill at No. 1, the Dallas Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb at No. 2 and the Detroit Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown at No. 3.
Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings didn’t make it. They lost quarterback Kirk Cousins to a torn Achilles midway through, and Jefferson only played in 10 games due to a hamstring injury.
But Jefferson’s historic new four-year, $140 million contract extension signed on Monday sent a blistering shot across the market and delivered a clear message about the modern NFL:
It is now quarterbacks, wide receivers and, with the exception of a few elite pass rushers, everyone else.
Jefferson’s $35 million average annual value even symbolically leapfrogged the NFL’s highest-paid pass rusher, the San Francisco 49ers’ Nick Bosa at $34 million, as the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.
Five of the top seven active, non-quarterback annual contract values now belong to wide receivers: Jefferson, the Philadelphia Eagles’ A.J. Brown ($31 million), St. Brown ($30 million) and the Dolphins’ Hill ($30 million) and Jaylen Waddle ($28.25 million).
Bosa and Chiefs pass rusher Chris Jones ($31.75 million) are the others.
Other top receivers probably aren’t going to enter Jefferson’s $35 million stratosphere just yet. As Overthecap.com’s Jason Fitzgerald pointed out Monday, a lot of reported contract numbers are inflated, and the true new receiver market number to beat was about $28.5 million before Jefferson rocketed past it with a very real $35 million in this deal.
Jefferson’s cash flow will be $76 million through year two compared to A.J. Brown’s $59 million in that same timeframe, demonstrating the disparity.
Still, for receivers as a whole, it is significant that this contract “values Jefferson in line with a totally different group of players,” as Fitzgerald wrote. By using Bosa’s numbers as a barometer to exceed, the Vikings and Jefferson solidified that transcendent stars at receiver have entered an entire new class of value above almost everyone outside of the QBs.
In this climate, then, it is especially advantageous for the Giants to have No. 6 overall pick Malik Nabers on a rookie contract for at least three seasons, considering Daniel Jones’ $40 million annual salary and the rising costs of top veteran wideouts.
Having a No. 1 wide receiver at cost control at $7.3 million per year for three years, hypothetically, could enable the Giants to draft a new quarterback on a rookie deal next year and create important flexibility to help the rest of the roster.
And if the Giants were in a position of having to pay Nabers Jefferson-type money in 2027, that would be a great problem to have. And it would be feasible, with the QB still on a rookie contract for another season and the NFL’s salary cap continuing its meteoric rise league-wide.
That would look much better than the ledger does now: The Giants are one of only two NFL teams who are paying four players in the top 55 of the league’s average annual salaries.
They’ve got Jones, pass rusher Brian Burns ($28.2 million), left tackle Andrew Thomas ($23.5 million) and interior pass rusher Dexter Lawrence ($22.5 million).
The other team is the Houston Texans, who boast left tackle Laremy Tunsil ($25 million), pass rusher Danielle Hunter ($24.5 million) and wide receivers Nico Collins ($24.25 million) and Stefon Diggs ($22.52 million).
Notice who isn’t there for Houston, an ascending playoff team: C.J. Stroud, the star QB on a rookie deal.
Major investments at receiver don’t guarantee wins, of course. The Vikings, Cincinnati Bengals and Las Vegas Raiders all fell short last season despite boasting two stud wide receivers apiece.
A major quarterback injury or poor QB play helped to short circuit all three of those teams, reinforcing why it all starts and ends under center.
Plenty of the league’s highest-paid or star wide receivers have not been able to win their teams a Super Bowl over recent years, either.
Calvin Johnson never got one. Randy Moss never lifted the Lombardi Trophy. Larry Fitzgerald and Julio Jones took their teams to the big game, played huge in Super Bowls and still fell short.
The Chiefs have won two Super Bowls since trading Hill to Miami, putting more on their defense and running game. And Diggs, one of the league’s most productive wideouts since 2018, hasn’t won and has been traded by both the Vikings and Buffalo Bills.
And yet, the Chiefs have continued to thrive in part because tight end Travis Kelce is really a star receiver. The Rams’ Cooper Kupp led the NFL in receiving yards, catches and touchdowns — and had a huge postseason — during their 2021 Super Bowl run.
Before that, Tom Brady won Super Bowl No. 7 while throwing to the dynamic tandem of Evans and Chris Godwin in 2020. And the Dolphins and Eagles are nightmares for opposing defenses because they each have two No. 1s, including Philly’s DeVonta Smith.
This is why top receivers are being valued and paid now above basically everyone but quarterbacks, and in Jefferson’s case like a quarterback: because this is how many teams are winning. They are scoring. And that is continuing to force the market into places it hasn’t gone before.
