‘A mission for him.’ Vikings cornerback Khyree Jackson left an indelible mark on a 14-win season.

When Vikings players enter the visitor’s locker room in Glendale, Ariz., for Monday night’s playoff against the Los Angeles Rams, there will be a locker set up for cornerback Khyree Jackson like there has been at every road game this season.

His No. 31 jersey will rest on a hanger like every player’s. There will be a Bible on his seat, opened to Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” — one of Jackson’s favorite scriptures mentioned during the team’s celebration of his life in August.

Receiver Trent Sherfield Sr. will also bookmark James 1:12, which reads in part, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial,” because coach Kevin O’Connell included the verse in his speech at that team celebration.

The 24-year-old Jackson, one of three young men who died in a Maryland car accident on July 6, left an indelible mark on many Vikings players and coaches, who say they have felt his presence during a magical 14-win season. That presence goes beyond the many tangible ways the organization continues to honor him.

“It just kind of happened organically,” Sherfield said. “I came into the locker room my first preseason game and my locker was right next to his, and I really didn’t take that lightly. It was one of those things like, man, here was a guy who was my teammate who I was just looking at eye to eye and speaking to just a couple months ago, and he’s no longer with us. I just wanted to just pay my respects.”

The Vikings have kept the Jackson family close, said Khyree’s mother, Ebbony, hosting them for games this season. They were captains at what would’ve been Jackson’s first preseason game on Aug. 10 after the team selected him in the fourth round of the 2024 draft. A locker remains set up for Jackson at TCO Performance Center in Eagan, where running back Aaron Jones often orders fresh yellow flowers to be placed there at the end of most weeks.

On Monday night, players will continue to wear “K.J.” helmet decals while coaches have worn those initials on pins. Edge rusher Dallas Turner, a fellow rookie who played with Jackson at Alabama, has donned a pregame workout shirt with his friend’s name and picture that reads “will be missed forever.” A Vikings spokesperson said the team paid Jackson’s signing bonus of more than $800,000 to his estate and $20,000 in funeral and travel expenses.

“They have honored Khyree and embraced and showed up for our family during the most challenging time of our lives,” Ebbony Jackson wrote in a text message. “We wear our K.J. pins proudly and love that coach K.O. consistently displays his pin on game days.”

“Coach [O’Connell] was the first person after Vikings security that I spoke with after Khyree’s passing, and I could hear the compassion and empathy in his voice,” she added. “And even six months later, the coaches and players continue to show up and check on us. We feel part of the Vikings family, and it is a privilege to be associated with this remarkable team. I hope they make it to the Super Bowl and win it all — they truly deserve it!”

O’Connell recalled that July night in California when a call came from across the country with the most devastating news he has received as the Vikings coach.

“I don’t know if I’ve experienced a tougher phone call,” he said. “You’re so far away, but yet you want them to think you’re right there with them for anything you can help, even though in many ways there’s nothing that can help.”

O’Connell began calling other rookies on the team and then the veteran leaders to inform them and let them grieve. Those discussions eventually turned to finding ways to honor Jackson.

“You started to feel the weight of his impact,” O’Connell said, “that I can’t understate for a guy that hadn’t been here that long to have that kind of impact on so many.”

The team’s other rookies most often keep Jackson in focus. Defensive tackle Levi Drake Rodriguez, a seventh-round pick, said he reads those Bible verses at Jackson’s locker before every game. First-round quarterback J.J. McCarthy recently covered his locker nameplate with Jackson’s name and number. Sixth-round kicker Will Reichard, who also went to Alabama, was among several players who spoke at the team’s celebration of life for Jackson in August.

Turner, the first-round pick who played two seasons with Jackson for the Crimson Tide, still talks to his friend.

“Tell him I miss him,” Turner said. “Tell him how it is, just talking to him how I’d talk to him if he was here.”

Jackson’s improbable journey to the Vikings included stops at junior colleges and time away from the sport before returning to earn his way to the top of college football at Alabama and Oregon. The confident and outspoken Jackson always wore a smile.

Turner tries to embody Jackson’s resiliency and joy daily.

“You know when Khyree in the room,” Turner said. “He going to make you laugh, he going to tell you some real stuff. Everybody might not like him, but he was always going to be real and authentic. … He was one of the mentally strongest people I know, because what he overcame throughout his life in general, above football, and seeing how he talked and the confidence he had with everything he did. That kind of lit a light in me. He helped me realize who I was.”

All three men who died in the July car accident attended Wise High School in Prince George’s County in Maryland. Three Vikings players — Turner, defensive tackle Taki Taimani and receiver Jeshaun Jones — joined O’Connell, General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and three assistant coaches in attending the joint funeral there for Jackson and Isaiah Hazel.

Jeshaun Jones, an undrafted rookie on the Vikings practice squad, lost two friends in the crash. Jones said he was “very close” with Hazel, a former teammate at the University of Maryland, and knew Jackson through Hazel before coming to Minnesota.

“Watched [Hazel] grow from a boy to a man,” Jones said. “I just go hard everyday because those were the kinds of guys they were. They worked hard; they loved ball.”

Taimani, an undrafted rookie out of Oregon, met Jackson when he transferred there from Alabama for his final college season in 2023. They didn’t get along at first, but Taimani said his stickler attitude was broken down by Jackson’s fun-loving, loose personality.

“I was hard on people,” Taimani said. “And Khyree was just always him, and I got used to Khyree. … We always used to call him Mr. Too Cool. He’s that guy always wearing some nice things, but he just always had good intentions.

“I always keep that in the back of my head that this isn’t just a mission for me,” he added. “This is a mission for him, and kind of carrying his name.”

At his first Vikings practice on May 10, Jackson was already betting on himself.

McCarthy, the first-round quarterback, was talking trash to Jackson and other defenders. McCarthy wanted to make a bet: If he had three or fewer incompletions in practice, they would run sprints; if he had more, he would run.

McCarthy lost. And Jackson let him hear it, throwing his arms in the air as a jab at McCarthy after practice.

“You’re talking about rookie minicamp,” O’Connell said. “That was him from Day 1.”

Vikings evaluators were drawn to Jackson’s potential as a confident, 6-4 cornerback coming off a breakout season at Oregon. And Jackson was motivated by falling to the draft’s fourth round, telling those around him that the Vikings “got me at a discount.”

He was going to continue playing through a left shoulder injury, initially a dislocation and torn labrum suffered in October 2023.

At Jackson’s funeral, O’Connell told the congregation that he had advised Jackson to consider surgery that would sideline him as a rookie.

“But not Khyree,” O’Connell said in July at First Baptist Church in Upper Marlboro, Md. “He looked at me and said: ‘Nope. I can play. I have to be out there with my brothers.’”

Recalled Turner: “I told him he should’ve got surgery right after the [2023] season. But he said he had to run the 40[-yard dash] and handle his business. He made that decision, and he was definitely going to play the whole [Vikings] season with a shoulder injury, too.”

Cornerback Dwight McGlothern, a Vikings undrafted rookie out of Arkansas who befriended Jackson during the NFL draft process, wasn’t surprised Jackson was going to gut through pain to play in the NFL right away.

“He’s not able to live out his dream,” McGlothern said, “but we’re living it out for him.”

When the team reconvened for training camp in late July without Jackson, defensive coordinator Brian Flores recalled telling the group that they needed to honor his memory by playing with the type of force, speed and fun that their former teammate brought every day.

“I think I used the word swaggy, which I don’t normally use,” Flores said. “Hopefully we’ve done that. I think he’s watching us saying he’s appreciative of the fact we’re having a good time and playing that way.”

Safety and celebration choreographer Camryn Bynum said he is known as the “energy guy,” but he found an equally joyful Jackson when they met this spring. Bynum said Jackson would have contributed to the Vikings’ league-leading 33 takeaways and dances in some form or fashion.

In a way, Jackson still has.

“You feel his spirit,” defensive tackle Harrison Phillips said. “It means more. The loss of Khyree has meant enough to a lot of us that it’s allowed us to do some special things.”

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