One of the biggest debates in sports over the last few years has been who the best wide receiver (WR) in the NFL is: Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson. Ja’Marr Chase is a WR for the Cincinnati Bengals, going into his fifth year in the league. On the other hand, Justin Jefferson is a WR for the Minnesota Vikings, going into his sixth year on the team. Over the last few years, NFL fans all over the world have gone back and forth on which WR is the better player. But who is the best? And how do we decide?
One of the best methods for settling this kind of debate in many sports, but especially football, is stats. Stats are a good measure of a player’s effect on their team. Ja’Marr and Justin are both currently in the middle of their 5th and 6th seasons in the league respectively, but for the sake of this debate, we will leave out their current seasons until later.
Over Ja’Marr’s first four full seasons, he has amassed 5,425 yards in 62 games, which comes out to 87.5 yards a game. On the other hand Justin Jefferson, in his first 5 full seasons, he accumulated 7,432 yards in 77 games, which is 96.5 yards per game.
Since Ja’Marr came into the league, only two wide receivers have gained more yardage, Jefferson, and Tyreek Hill. However, I won’t be including Tyreek in this debate because he has recently taken a dip in his production and dropped out of the running in most peoples’ eyes. In addition, Tyreek has played several more games than either of them.
So statistically, it seems that Jefferson has the edge for now.
Another measure of a player’s skill is overall team success. When Ja’Marr plays, the Bengals are 39-28, which is a win percentage of about 58%, whereas the Vikings with Jefferson are 47-35, so very similar. With that being said, I would point out that when Ja’Marr plays, the Bengals average 341 offensive yards per game and 2.9 touchdowns. The Vikings average 360 offensive yards per game with Jefferson and 2.9 touchdowns.
So clearly Jefferson also dominates in the team success category right? Well, not necessarily.
The ultimate goal of the NFL is to win the Super Bowl, so playoff success is a big factor in this debate. In his career with the Vikings, Justin Jefferson has only appeared in two playoff games, and he lost both. However, Ja’Marr, even with 1 less year in the league, has a 5-2 record in the playoffs, including a loss in the Super Bowl, where he had 5 catches for 89 yards. So in that regard, Ja’Marr is probably winning.
Another factor is quarterback (QB) play, which heavily goes with winning the Super Bowl. Ja’Marr, barring injuries, has played with the same QB his entire career, Joe Burrow. Although, Joe Burrow has been injury prone, so Ja’Marr has played 12 games with 3 different backup QBs, 10 with Jake Browning, and 2 with 2 other QBs. Mostly playing and practicing with the same QB for a WR’s career helps develop chemistry and a rapport, which can be huge. Furthermore, both of Ja’Marr’s college football years for LSU were with Joe Burrow, so he’s been playing with the same main QB for seven whole years now, since 2018. However, including this year, Justin Jefferson has played with 7 different QBs, the majority of which are with Kirk Cousins, who was the starter for the Vikings up until 2024.
Other than Cousins though, Jefferson has played 17 games with Sam Darnold, 4 with Josh Dobbs, 3 with Carson Wentz, 3 with Nick Mullens, 2 with Jaren Hall, 2 with JJ McCarthy, and 1 with Sean Manion. It is significant to note that every QB who has played with Justin Jefferson has played the best of their career with him, even if it was just for a game or two, he lifts up every QB he plays with.
Furthermore, Ja’Marr’s lifetime QB, Joe Burrow, is widely considered a top 3-5 QB in the entire league, he even – with the help of Ja’Marr – led the league in passing yards and TDs in the league in 2024.
On the other hand, even Justin Jefferson‘s most played with QB, Kirk Cousins, has not found any success since leaving Jefferson, even getting benched for a rookie QB last year, and he hasn’t played since. So clearly, all his career, Ja’Marr has had a huge advantage over Justin Jefferson in terms of who has actually been throwing the ball to him.
One important stat to consider with the QB relationship is yards after catch (YAC). The elite NFL WRs have to not get open for a pass, to make their QB’s job easy, but also make plays once they get open and get the ball. YAC shows how many yards a player picks up after they’ve already caught the ball. It is a great measure of how much of the player’s yardage and stats are actually their own play-making ability, and not just their QB throwing it to them.
Ja’Marr, over his career, averages 7.4 YAC per catch, and 13.4 yards per catch in general, which is impressive. On the other hand, Jefferson averages 4.8 YAC per catch, along with 15 yards per reception. So, it seems that Ja’Marr is the more explosive player, even with an elite QB, he averages more yards once he has the ball than by the time he gets it.
The last important statistic I want to go over is related to YAC – the “Receiver Score.. Since 2017, ESPN has started tracking what they call “Receiver Scores.” These are 4 scores for each WR; overall, catch, YAC, and open. for every category, 50 is average. The gradesfactor in every route run by every player, including playoffs.
The first grade I want to point out here is YAC. The YAC grade specifically is calculated based on chips in the players gear, that transfer data about player’s locations and speed, and then a trained AI predicts how many yards after the catch the player who just caught it will get, based on data right as they caught the ball. If a player gets more, it benefits their YAC grade, if less, it hurts it. This will really show whether Ja’Marr’s and Justin’s YAC is really their talent, or if their is just getting easy room to run after their catches.
Over Ja’Marr’s career, ESPN has calculated his YAC “grade” to be 64, the 2nd highest grade for any player in the time since Ja’Marr joined the league back in 2021. However, Justin’s is 51, which is about average. This confirms what we gathered earlier, that Ja’Marr is a much bigger threat once he actually gets the ball in his hands, but these next two scores will tell us how well he actually gives his QBs the chance to get the ball to him.
The next grade I want to talk about is the “catch” grade. The catch grade works similarly to the YAC grade, they use the same data from chips in the players gear. The AI then looks at the data and decides what the chance was that the player would catch the ball, if they catch it when not expected to they get a big boost, when they’re expected to, a smaller boost, and they opposite for if they drop it. Justin Jefferson’s grade was 67, and Ja’Marr’s was 61.
Those grades place 23rd and 36th respectively since 2020, when Justin entered the league. The next grade, that loops in with “catch” is “open.” The open grade is determined the same way, through the chips, and then the AI determines how “open” the player is by how likely they are to make a catch if they were thrown the ball at the time the ball was actually thrown, even if the throw wasn’t to the player.
Through his career, Jefferson’s “open” grade is 78, 9th in the league since he entered it. Ja’Marr’s is 62, which is 41st in the league since he entered it. So this shows, again, the Ja’Marr is much better at making plays once he has the ball, but Jefferson is much better at actually getting the ball. The last 2 stats off of ESPN’s receiver scores are very important.
We’ve determined that each player changes the game in their own special way, but which way is better? Well, ESPN tracks yards per route run. It is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a measure of the average amount of yards the player picks up every time they run a route. Most of the time they run a route, they won’t get the ball, but that’s exactly the point, it’s a perfect show of which players set of skills works better for them, does Jefferson usually pick up more yards per route because he can get the ball more, or does Ja’Marr, becuase when he gets the ball, he’s more deadly?
Well the answer doesn’t exactly tell us who’s better, but it does summarize everything we’ve learned about these guys’ play styles. The answer is that Justin Jefferson average more yards per route run (2.9) than Ja’Marr (2.5). That may not sound like much, but those are actually 3rd, and 9th respectively since Justin joined the league. That was just a stat though, not the 4th, final, and most important grade that ESPN’s receiver scores give.
The last grade is their overall grade. it’s a combination of all the grades put together to determine how well the player does at being open, catching the ball, and running once they have it, it basically perfectly sums up these WRs. Justin leads the overall score 77 to 70. Those grades place 4th and 9th in the league since 2020. Now you might be thinking, well who are the 3 above them, why aren’t they the best WRs? Well their overall grade doesn’t factor everything.
The guys above are guys who are really great, but aren’t as game breaking to where you need to gameplan around them, double team them, or stuff like that. That advantage helps them be over the elite guys like Justin and Ja’Marr.
The last thing to consider is records and awards. Jefferson holds multiple records, and they are as follows: record for most receiving yards in first 3, 4 and 5 seasons of any players career. He also has won one offensive player of the year award, and this is only in the first couple years of his young career. Ja’Marr’s awards and records are as follows; 2024 triple crown (led league in receiving yards, receptions, and TDs), 2021 offensive rookie of the year, and the first player ever to have multiple games with 260+ receiving yards.
So, who is better? Justin or Ja’Marr? Would you rather have the big play threat that’s explosive and flashy, the guy who can turn the tables of any game with just one route, one catch, one play? Or the constant threat, the player who is just slowly tearing the other team’s defense apart methodically, usually without huge highlight plays? It’s impossible to officially determine who is truly better, it’s all up to personal preference. So it’s your choice. Who would you rather have?
