You almost started to forget how good star receiver Justin Jefferson is after he was out injured for so long.

He provided a remind on Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium before the Vikings ceded the NFC North crown to the Detroit Lions with a 30-24 loss.

In total, Jefferson finished with 6 catches for 141 yards and a touchdown, dazzling everybody in attendance with the way he consistently made an impact. He absorbed massive hits in the open field while still holding onto the ball. He climbed the ladder for an incredible catch when his teammates needed it most. He recovered a fumble late in the game to make a comeback still feel possible.

“He’s a beast,” quarterback Nick Mullens said. “You just have so much trust in him.”

That makes the final play for the offense even harder to stomach in hindsight. In the final minutes, the Vikings trusted Jefferson to win his matchup, and he did with relative ease. He was running in open space with a chance to take the lead, but the ball never got to him. Instead, Mullens decided not to lead Jefferson, which turned into an interception that effectively ended the game.

It certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort on Jefferson’s part.

“He battled,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “This guy is going to leave it all out on the field. That’s what I love about him. He is so tremendously talented, such a competitor, and we’re going to continue to try it feature our best player, regardless of what the defense tries to take away.”

That’s a good idea considering what Jefferson did throughout the game against the Lions. His dominance was perfectly encapsulated by his catch in the final minutes, which featured him skying over a pair of defenders and somehow coming down with the ball.

“I’m just trying to make a play for my team,” Jefferson said. “Before that play, I told Nick, ‘No matter what it is, just throw it over.’ ”

Why does that always seem to work?

“That’s Justin Jefferson,” fellow receiver K.J. Osborn said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s what God made him to be.”

If the Vikings want to have any chance of making the playoffs, they need to win both games over the next couple of weeks. It would behoove them to feature Jefferson as much as possible in that span.

“It definitely was great to get back and to be in the mix of things and to be in front of this crowd and to give them something to cheer about,” Jefferson said. “The outcome is not what we wanted. There’s a lot of things that we can take from this game on the positive side. We’ve just got to keep working.”

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