The Minnesota Vikings are in a figuring-out period at the quarterback position, and it’s made star receiver Justin Jefferson quite restless. After seven years of stable play at the position from Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold in Minnesota, it was a rough start for J.J. McCarthy last season.
Now, the Vikings have McCarthy and veteran Kyler Murray battling for the starting role in 2026, but what if neither guy pans out?
NFL Insider Hints at Vikings’ Justin Jefferson Trade to Raiders
Jefferson is coming off his worst season in the NFL. It wasn’t a bad year by any stretch, but it did produce career-low numbers for the two-time All-Pro receiver. He had 84 receptions on 141 targets for 1,048 yards and two touchdowns, and according to PFN’s WR Impact Metric, was the 38th-ranked wideout in the league.
There were obvious moments of frustration for the sixth-year receiver last year when the ball simply wasn’t getting to him when it should have been.
The Vikings also finished 9-8 after going 14-3 the previous year. If Minnesota doesn’t get off to a strong start in 2026, could the Vikings listen to trade offers?
One Las Vegas Raiders insider believes so. In fact, Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter thinks Jefferson could be exactly the type of player the Raiders could be looking for to be a weapon for rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
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But he doesn’t think the move would happen immediately.
“I think you wait and let that Justin Jefferson thing pan out a little bit. Nothing’s imminent. I’m not saying anything is imminent,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast (raidersbeat.com). “I just know that there’s a potential that he may want to move on and he had his best play with Klint (Kubiak).
Carpenter added, “I think and may have reason to believe that he would be amicable if he were to be moved to be reunited… with Klint Kubiak.”
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Kubiak was the quarterbacks coach and then the offensive coordinator for the Vikings from 2019 to 2021, a tenure that overlapped with Jefferson’s first two years in the NFL.
During that time, the Vikings receiver caught 88 passes for 1,400 yards and seven touchdowns in his rookie year and an astounding 108 passes for 1,616 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2021, earning Pro Bowl nods both years.
The now-Raiders head coach was instrumental in Jefferson’s early development in Minnesota, and it makes sense for a reunion now, in his seventh year in the league.
The LSU product has put together six straight 1,000-yard seasons, has made four Pro Bowls, and was the Offensive Player of the Year in 2022.
Jefferson has been nearly unstoppable since he came into the league, and giving a young, process-oriented quarterback, Mendoza, that type of weapon is exactly what Raiders fans would love to see.
