The Minnesota Vikings receiver is putting up some historic numbers so far this season and he is playing better than anyone else in the NFL from his position group.
Early in the third quarter of their matchup against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins fired a pass to his left just as he was getting engulfed by the pass rush. The throw looked like it was going to just end up as an incompletion, but thanks to a diving effort by Vikings receiver Adam Thielen, the play ended up resulting in a first down.
Thielen’s catch was so impressive that Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks didn’t believe he actually hauled it in. Wilks threw his red challenge flag out onto the field and let the refs confirm what everyone else in U.S. Bank Stadium already knew; Thielen caught it.
But based on the type of year the Minnesota receiver has been having so far, Wilks should have already known that he was going to lose his challenge. That catch is just one of the many impressive moments from the first six games of Thielen’s 2018 season.
After six weeks, the Vikings pass catcher has hauled 58 passes for 712 yards and four touchdowns. Thielen’s totals for catches and receiving yards are both tops in the NFL right now.
He’s on pace to finish 2018 with 155 receptions, which would be 12 more than the current league record for a single season set by Marvin Harrison in 2002.
So based on stats alone, Thielen is technically the best wide receiver in the NFL at this point in the season.
Even outside of the numbers though, an argument can be made that no pass catcher in the league is playing better than Thielen this year after six weeks. Not Antonio Brown, not DeAndre Hopkins, not Julio Jones, and not Tyreek Hill.
The Minnesota receiver’s superb route running abilities allow him to get open on virtually every play, he catches just about everything that is thrown his way, and he has the speed to breakaway from defenders once the ball is in his hand.
Yes, guys like Brown, Hopkins, and Jones have been putting up impressive numbers more consistently over the last four or five seasons. But that shouldn’t take anything away from what Thielen is doing in 2018.
Not only does he lead the league in catches and receiving yards, but he has finished each of his six games this year with at least 100 receiving yards. To begin a season, no player since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970 has accomplished Thielen’s feat in the first five weeks, let alone the first six.
Let’s not act like the current performance from the Vikings receiver has come out of nowhere either. Thielen is coming off a 2017 season that saw him catch 91 passes for 1,276 yards and four touchdowns.
Since 2016, he has the the sixth-most catches (216) and the fourth-most receiving yards (2,955) of any player in the NFL.
Minnesota’s addition of Cousins has really allowed Thielen to blossom at an even faster pace this year too. Unlike his first few seasons with the Vikings, the receiver doesn’t have to worry about passes being off-target or his quarterback checking down for an easy throw.
As an undrafted free-agent who signed to Minnesota’s practice squad in 2013, Thielen really did start from the bottom. Now five years later, he is currently standing on the mountaintop as the league’s best receiver.