Justin Jefferson outranks Dalvin Cook in recent Top 100 list

Does Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson deserve to be considered a better player than Dalvin Cook heading into the 2021 season?

During his first season with the Minnesota Vikings last year, Justin Jefferson surprised a bunch of people with his impressive performance. Jefferson probably wouldn’t have been the fifth receiver taken off the board in the 2020 NFL Draft if teams knew how quickly he was going to adjust to the pros.

Jefferson wasn’t even in the starting lineup for Minnesota‘s first two games of the 2020 season, yet he still had the best rookie performance by a receiver in a purple and gold uniform since Randy Moss in 1998.

What does the young Vikings receiver have in store for year two? Will he continue to break records and further establish himself as one of the top wide receivers in the entire NFL?

Will Justin Jefferson have a better season than Dalvin Cook for the Minnesota Vikings in 2021?

Most are assuming Jefferson will still put up impressive numbers in 2021. At the same time, it wouldn’t be shocking to see his final stats be a little lower than they were last season, considering how high he set the bar in just one year.

However, we’ve already learned that it’s not a good idea to doubt Jefferson. Just ask all of the teams who passed on him during last year’s NFL Draft.

So heading into the 2021 season, where does Jefferson deserve to be ranked when it comes to listing the top players in the league. Well, according to Pro Football Network’s NFL Top 100 for 2021, there are only 30 other players in the league who are currently better than the Minnesota wide receiver.

Jefferson is sitting in the No. 31 spot on PFN’s Top 100 list, compiled by Dalton Miller, which happens to be slightly higher than his Vikings teammate, running back Dalvin Cook, who wound up in the No. 36 spot.

These rankings would seem to indicate that Jefferson is a more important piece to Minnesota’s success in 2021 than Cook.

While the talented receiver is going to play a very big role for the Vikings next season, the team would have a much more difficult time trying to win each week without their top running back on the field.

Jefferson is a very talented wide receiver, but he also benefitted a lot from Cook drawing a significant amount of attention from the opposing defense last year. Does the Minnesota pass-catcher still have the same impressive rookie season in 2020 without Cook on the field? Probably not.

These rankings from Pro Football Network aren’t egregious or anything like that. But at this point, it still seems a little too early to place Jefferson higher than Cook on any sort of list that ranks every player in the league.