Jaxon Smith-Njigba can join Jerry Rice in rare club
Why don't players win back-to-back Offensive Player of the Year awards?
It happened 25 years ago, long before the Internet was regularly crystallizing every moment, but did fans truly appreciate how special it was that Marshall Faulk won three straight Offensive Player of the Year awards?
Faulk (1999-2001) and Earl Campbell (1978-1980) are the only players to win the award in back-to-back years, let alone three in a row. If we had known then that 21 different players would win the next 24 OPOY awards—and all three two-time winners were quarterbacks—would we have appreciated how much the league’s tendencies were about to change?
Or to quote the movie Oldboy: “If they had told me it was going to be fifteen years, would it have been easier to endure?”
Since Faulk’s third win, 15 different skill players have won Offensive Player of the Year, none repeating.
Whether it be next season or five years from now, Jaxon Smith-Njigba has a chance to join Jerry Rice in a club that only has one member: The former Seahawk is the only wide receiver to EVER win Offensive Player of the Year more than once in his career.
JSN, still only 24, has plenty of time to become the second.
The only question I have is, why is it so damn difficult?
When OPOY is a Skill Player award, and when it’s not
Actually, because MVP has become the de facto quarterback award, Offensive Player of the Year has become the de facto skill player award. Skill players have won the last seven OPOY awards, the last quarterback being Patrick Mahomes in 2018 when he threw 50 touchdowns.
In fact, there even seems to be a benchmark with touchdown passes and winning OPOY:
Every QB who has thrown at least 46 touchdowns in a season has won OPOY with the exception of two.
Aaron Rodgers threw 48 touchdowns in 2020, but lost OPOY to Derrick Henry on the back of a 2,000-yard rushing season
Matthew Stafford threw 46 touchdowns in 2025, but lost to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
In both cases, the quarterback (neither of whom has ever been OPOY) was the league MVP that season. However, we know that voters tend to lean in favor of a non-QB option for OPOY if they can do anything to help it. In the six other cases of a QB throwing at least 46 touchdowns, voters couldn’t help it and that player won OPOY.
That includes the only two times that Peyton Manning won the award (2004, 2013), the only time that Dan Marino won (1984), plus Mahomes, Brady, and Brees.
Why didn’t Stafford win OPOY?
As amazing as JSN was, it’s hard not to wonder if voters just have passing touchdown exhaustion (PTE). We may just be taking for granted how much the temperature has changed over the last 10 years on simply racking up touchdowns, or voters are just dead set on separating MVP from OPOY.
Because although Stafford won MVP, he did not finish second in OPOY. He did not finish third. He did not finish in the top-five.
Stafford barely even qualified, as skill players dominated the 2025 OPOY race.
If you think that’s only because Stafford won MVP, just keep in mind that in 2024, Lamar Jackson finished second in both MVP and OPOY voting. In 2022, Mahomes won MVP and finished second in OPOY. In 2019, Lamar won MVP and fell just a few votes shy of winning OPOY over Michael Thomas.
Mahomes is the last player to win both awards, having done so during his 50-touchdown campaign eight years ago.
Stafford has never been good at getting votes—prior to 2023, Stafford only made one Pro Bowl over 14 seasons with the Lions and Rams—but barely registering as an OPOY candidate despite throwing 46 touchdown passes? That tells me that there’s been yet another shift in voting habits: QBs are strictly limited to MVP candidacy, barring them doing something historic.
Will that shift work in JSN’s favor the next time he gets over 1,700 yards?
Pre-Priest: When Winning 2x wasn’t 2-hard
When Faulk won his third Offensive Player of the Year award, it was actually the fifth time in a span of nine years that the winner was someone who had already won:
1993: Jerry Rice wins his second (first was 1987)
1994, 1997: Barry Sanders wins
1996, 1998: Terrell Davis wins
1999, 2000, 2001: Faulk wins
Other than Brett Favre in 1995 (when he was also MVP), every other OPOY winner from 1993 to 2001 was a player who won at least two times.
However, this was not the norm.
From 1972-1992, Campbell was the only player to win the award multiple times, and he won it three times in a row. Campbell narrowly defeated Dan Fouts in 1979 to win his second, then had this undeniable campaign in 1980 by rushing for 1,934 yards in only 15 games.
Campbell became the first running back to win MVP and OPOY in the same season, a feat accomplished seven times since then, the last being Adrian Peterson in 2012.
Voters were far less likely to push for a player who had already won once, until Rice beat teammate Steve Young in a 34.6% to 25.9% vote in 1993. In a twist that seems impossible today, Young also finished second in MVP voting, but not to Rice; the 1993 MVP was Emmitt Smith*, a back who only got 14.3% of the OPOY voting share.
*Today, Smith would beat Favre in a landslide for the 1995 OPOY award, as he rushed for 1,773 yards and 25 touchdowns that season. Voters would split MVP to Favre and OPOY to Smith in a 2025 vote, but back then he lost 43% to 37%.
And then for almost a decade, voters were very comfortable voting for someone who had already won, until Priest Holmes defeated Marvin Harrison on the back of a 2,300 total yards season in 2002. Rich Gannon won MVP.
Between Holmes and Smith-Njigba, no skill player has won the award multiple times. Manning, Brady, and Brees all won twice.
What changed? And will it change again?
Why they didn’t win again
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is only 23 and he’s gotten better every season, going from 628 yards as a rookie to 1,130 yards in 2024 and 1,793 yards in 2025. Because of his versatility as both a premier weapon on the outside and in the slot, JSN has the rare ability to be a WR1 from anywhere on the field.
Wes Welker didn’t go outside. Calvin Johnson didn’t go inside. JSN can do both and can be an All-Pro from the X, Y, or Z positions.
However, JSN is not the first great wideout and he won’t be the last. What went “wrong” for the 14 skill players who won OPOY since 2002?
Priest Holmes (2002): Was just as dominant in 2003, but lost OPOY to Jamal Lewis after Lewis rushed for over 2,000 yards. Holmes would get injured and never be the same.
Jamal Lewis (2003): Injuries cut his follow-up season short and he was never as good.
Shaun Alexander (2005): Injured in 2006 and never rushed for over 900 yards again.
LaDainian Tomlinson (2006): LT led the NFL in rushing yards and touchdowns in 2007, but wasn’t nearly as dominant and got no OPOY votes. He was already 27 when he finally won MVP and OPOY in 2006.
Chris Johnson (2009): Continued to be a good running back for a long time, but never caught lightning in a bottle like he did in 2009.
Adrian Peterson (2012): The closest to winning the award twice of anyone on the list, Peterson caught a few votes in 2015, but never stood a chance. He tied for second in OPOY voting in 2007 with Manning and behind Brees; Manning won MVP. In today’s voting, I believe Manning would win MVP and Peterson would win OPOY, not Brees.
DeMarco Murray (2014): Similar to Chris Johnson. His season was surprising and he never came close to it again.
Todd Gurley (2017): He did finish third in 2018, behind the 50-TD season by Mahomes. Injuries then ended his career before he turned 25.
Michael Thomas (2019): The first WR to win the award since JERRY RICE. That only took 26 years! But Thomas seemed to just go to another dimension after the 2019 season and he barely registered any more numbers despite only being 27. I don’t have this fear with JSN.
Derrick Henry (2020): A remarkable four years later, Henry comes back again with 1,921 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns with the Ravens in 2024, but finished fourth in OPOY voting. We can’t write him off yet.
Cooper Kupp (2021): Kupp has done a lot of stuff like Jerry Rice. He won the Jerry Rice award in college. He won OPOY, like Rice. He won Super Bowl MVP, like Rice. He won a Super Bowl with two different QBs, like Rice. And he signed with the Seahawks, like Rice. One thing he didn’t do like Rice? Stay healthy.
Justin Jefferson (2022): Although he had 1,500 yards in 2024, Jefferson hasn’t come close to another OPOY win. Frankly, in today’s NFL economy, 1,500 receiving yards isn’t nearly as impressive as it used to be. That year, Ja’Marr Chase had over 1,700 yards and only finished third.
Christian McCaffrey (2023): Two receivers had over 1,700 yards in 2023 (Tyreek Hill had 1,799, CeeDee Lamb was close behind) and they both lost to McCaffrey. The lesson is: As good as you think you need to be, you actually need to be a lot better. I said Peterson was the closest to winning twice, but to be fair McCaffrey finished second to JSN last year.
Saquon Barkley (2024): A lot of credit has gone to Barkley’s offensive line, especially since he was a lot less productive when they fell apart in 2025.
Finally bringing us back to…JSN.
How can JSN win JS-again?
Following the 26-year drought, receivers have now won the OPOY award in four of the last seven elections. Which makes sense. The NFL has made a concerted effort over the last 40 years to become more of a passing league, has hailed its wide receivers as the second-biggest stars behind only quarterbacks, and has recently stopped allowing passers to win OPOY when it’s obvious that they’re going to win MVP.
Maybe that could change as soon as next season—what if Caleb Williams throws for 40 touchdowns and rushes for 15? Certainly under some circumstances, voters will be compelled to break the streak again—but for the most part it is a Skill Player Award.
And tight ends need not apply. (Travis Kelce has only even gotten votes twice and he was never close.)
At the running back position, you have a few players who have already won (McCaffrey, Barkley, Henry) and a few players who look like prime candidates (Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, De’Von Achane), and you never know who might pop up.
But receivers are currently sitting atop the mix and there’s a benchmark for them too:
Receivers who get over 1,700 yards are usually in the top-three.
Receivers who get 1,800+ yards usually win.
Only something truly exceptional (like Calvin Johnson losing to Peterson’s 2,000-yard season in 2012) has gotten in the way. But if you average 100+ receiving yards per game, score 10+ touchdowns, you’re right in the mix to win Offensive Player of the Year. That should be true even if you’ve already won before.
I don’t see why that would be different for JSN.
JSN goes into his age-24 season having already won OPOY. This gives him a MASSIVE advantage to win twice over many of his predecessors.
Kupp was 29 going into his next season after winning
Thomas was 27
McCaffrey was 28
Barkley was 28
Similar to Jefferson, who was also 23 when he won, JSN should have plenty of opportunities to have a historic season again. I do not doubt that Justin Jefferson could also win a second OPOY award. I would not be surprised if someone like Chase, who has not won it yet, wins next season and then he’s chasing number two for a while.
I do think most other candidates are still lacking something, whether that be Amon-Ra St. Brown, CeeDee Lamb, or Puka Nacua. But JSN isn’t lacking anything—and the Seahawks could go right back to the well with what worked in 2025, with Sam Darnold chucking 35% of his passes to JSN because he’s so clearly the best receiver on the field and no defense has proven that they can stop him.
JSN had 1,793 yards in 2025 and that’s not even close to what he was capable of because a) Seattle often had to pull him out of blowouts and b) he didn’t even finish top-40 in routes run. Should the Seahawks find themselves in closer contests next season, JSN might break 2,000 yards.
And if JSN breaks 2,000 yards, it’s no longer a matter of whether he joins Jerry Rice. Then the story becomes, will he join Campbell and Faulk in 2028?