It never occurs to me to ask the “Who’s on your Mt. Rushmore?” question, but as I try to think of which former Seahawks Jaxon Smith-Njigba reminds me of, the first three names that come to mind are Steve Largent, Cortez Kennedy, and Walter Jones. JSN isn’t even 25 yet and I can’t come up with five names in franchise history who have had a bigger impact on a Seahawks team than he has.
That would feel like too bold of a statement if it weren’t for the fact that Seattle has already won a Super Bowl because of him. If the Seahawks had lost even one more game last season, their playoffs could have ended much differently, and nobody had a more significant impact than the 2025 Offensive Player of the Year:
JSN accounted for 31% of Seattle’s total offensive yards (1,829 scrimmage yards)
44% of Seattle’s gross passing yards (1,793 receiving yards)
35.8% of Seattle’s targets (1st in the NFL)
14.5 yards per touch (1st in the NFL)
Only six players had more scrimmage yards than JSN, and all six were running backs.
Despite playing in an offense without another major receiving threat — something many argued would stifle JSN’s career after the Seahawks traded DK Metcalf — and often being pulled from games in the second half because of blowouts, Smith-Njigba defied expectations and made the case that he is the best non-quarterback in the NFL.
If it’s opening a can of worms to compare JSN to the best players in Seahawks history, then call me the bait master.
Now instead of sharing Offensive Player of the Year awards like a nice boy would, JSN is selfishly trying to go back-to-back.
Four games into 2026, it’s not just that JSN is first in touchdowns (six), third in yards (481), and fourth in receptions (32), but that he’s done it while splitting his reps between two different quarterbacks. JSN had 277 yards with Drew Lock, and now he has 204 with Sam Darnold.
JSN having 76 yards against the Chargers doesn’t feel like a player slowing down — we’re at the point where 76 yards is “disappointing” — but another case of Seattle effectively putting its offense away early. Smith-Njigba had all 76 yards by the first play of the third quarter. After the Seahawks scored again to take a 21-point lead, they attempted just five more passes the rest of the game.
Just like last season, JSN is doing the most with the least:
41st in routes run (111 routes)
19 yards shy of leading the NFL (481 to CeeDee Lamb’s 498)
That is Jax-inSaNity.
Chris Olave leads the NFL with 174 routes run and has 491 yards. JSN’s former Ohio State teammate is a great player and the season he’s having is even more proof that Seattle has the best receiver in football. Even Olave and Garrett Wilson said that neither of them are as good as Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Only Zay Flowers is averaging more yards per route than JSN and that’s mostly because he has only played in 34% of the Ravens snaps.
As I wrote in the summer, JSN has a chance to join Jerry Rice as the only wide receivers to ever win multiple Offensive Player of the Year awards. But I was thinking of it as Smith-Njigba having at least five or six more years in his prime to win another, not necessarily going back-to-back.
Only Earl Campbell and Marshall Faulk have won the award in consecutive seasons, both having done it three years in a row.
It’s only Week 5, but JSN is once again having a very “Offensive Player of the Year-y” type season.
2025-2026 JSN Facts
It’ll be easier if we talk about JSN’s accomplishments in both the present season and as a whole dating back to last season.
JSN has three games over 120 yards this year
He set a franchise record with six such games in 2025, beating out Steve Largent’s 46-year old record of five games in 1979. If he gets one more, he’ll tie Joey Galloway for third place.
Let’s say that again: If JSN gets 120 yards against the 49ers this week, he’ll already have four of those 120-yard games.
Dating back to the start of 2025, JSN has nine 120-yard games. That’s as many as Puka Nacua and Ja’Marr Chase combined. Or George Pickens and Amon-Ra St. Brown combined. It’s more than Flowers and Lamb combined. Pick whichever pair you like.
For 100-yard games, JSN has 12 since the start of 2025, which is three more than Lamb, and five more than third-place Nacua and Chase. JSN’s nine 100-yard games last season is three more than any other player in Seahawks history (Largent had six in 1979).
2,274 yards
Smith-Njigba has 360 more yards than Nacua since last year. The gap between him and St. Brown is 570 yards in the same number of games and almost the same number of targets. As I wrote last year, JSN hits these numbers despite only getting maybe 70% of the number of routes that a Hall of Famer like Calvin Johnson used to get with Matthew Stafford’s Lions.
JSN’s 16 touchdown catches since last year is tied for first. But his offense was 22nd in passing attempts, whereas the other receivers who have 16 touchdowns (Davante Adams, St. Brown) are top-eight in attempts.
Does this amount to another OPOY award?
Technically we are not even one-quarter into the season, so now is an irrelevant time to talk about the merits of an award. However, is the offense running through JSN just as an offense would run through Saquon Barkley, Bijan Robinson, Marshall Faulk, or Jerry Rice?
That’s undeniable. JSN may technically be 31% of Seattle’s offense, but realistically his impact is EVERYTHING.
The 2026 Seattle Seahawks without Jaxon Smith-Njigba would be as crazy as a Halloween movie without Michael Myers (Halloween III: Season of the Witch), a Fast and the Furious movie without Paul Walker and Vin Diesel (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), or a Bourne movie without Jason Bourne (The Bourne Legacy).
It wouldn’t make any sense!
The argument for Jaxon Smith-Njigba already being one of the greatest Seahawks of all time — and a legit threat to win another OPOY award — is twofold:
He was a football legend at both levels before reaching the NFL, first as one of the all-time greatest players in Texas state history, then as one of the most dominant receivers in college history during his 2021 season at Ohio State.
His present value to the Seahawks exceeds that of most elite players, as he’s not on the Greatest Show on Turf or even the Ben Johnson Lions. Seattle is leaning on him like no other team leans on their best player—and that still hasn’t slowed him down.
But what’s especially strange about Smith-Njigba’s rocket ship ride to the top is how predictable it should have been compared to how skeptical people were that he’d become anything more than a good number two receiver.
“Jaxon Smith-Njigba is an exceptionally nimble and intelligent receiver whose slot-only status puts a ceiling on his projection.”
Skepticism of JSN’s impact could go as far back as his recruitment at Ohio State — a five-star recruit, yes, but actually not the highest-rated receiver in his own Ohio State class; that was Julian Fleming — but was especially high-pitched going into the 2023 draft.
Bleacher Report’s Derrik Klassen gave that quote about JSN’s low ceiling and compared him to “slow CeeDee Lamb”:
“It's just hard to imagine someone with Smith-Njigba's lackluster speed and inability to play outside (for now, at least) being a bona fide star receiver. Smith-Njigba projects best as a slot-only type who can be a high-end No. 2 option.”
I can’t be too critical of these reports. Klassen still had JSN as the 12th overall player in the class, but the copy/paste/repeat of 40 times and “he can’t play outside” really showcase the ceiling of most people who cover and talk about NFL Draft prospects.
Chris Simms, who should know more about players, also “worried about JSN winning on the outside.”
Smith-Njigba is now almost EXCLUSIVELY an outside receiver.
Since moving to the position that analysts said he COULD NOT PLAY in 2025, JSN has won Offensive Player of the Year and is leading the NFL in yards per route run (among qualified receivers). Per Next Gen Stats, JSN has spent about 80% of his routes in an outside alignment, and he has 441 yards with 5 touchdowns.
JSN has been targeted deep (20+ yards) 5 times and caught all 5 passes for 177 yards.
This is just a random person’s reply I found talking about how JSN isn’t one of the great Ohio State receivers, but that Marvin Harrison Jr. obviously is:
MHJ is one of the most obvious NFL Draft bust/misses of the past five years.
This is what a scout told Packers writer Bob McGinn about JSN:
“He’s one of the most overrated players in the draft,” said a fourth scout. “He’s got good hands, not great hands. He’s got good vision and run after but he doesn’t run away from anybody and he’s not particularly elusive. He can find holes in zones, and he’s tough. He’ll take a hit to make catch. I don’t see special traits. Has to be a slot. Not fast enough to play outside. I’d rather have (Zay) Flowers because he’s really fast and really good after the catch. Sounds like he might be a solid second-round pick, and I didn’t see that.”
This is what some scouts were saying? People with jobs to scout players for the draft? It’s good for this scout that the quotes are anonymous.
I could just keep posting the same criticisms and do it from all over—NFL.com, CBS Sports, etc.—and it would usually say the same things about being too slow and being limited to the slot. All wrong things.
But what’s fascinating is that this continued even after JSN got to the NFL and after he caught 100 passes for 1,130 yards in his second season at age 22.
“Hey guys, remember (an example of something that suits my argument)? Well, wouldn’t it suck if this current situation turned out like this random example I’m bringing up because it supports my belief?”
The Seahawks traded DK Metcalf and Geno Smith
Two of MY all-time favorite decisions by John Schneider, the Seahawks were largely criticized for these moves. What followed was an unprecedented campaign to dismiss JSN’s opportunity to be a WR1 because “DK is the only reason he’s good.”
NFL.com’s Kevin Patra gave Seattle a C+ and wrote this:
“I understand not wanting to pay through the nose for a player who is Pro Bowl caliber but not quite All-Pro. Still, what Metcalf landed from the Steelers is becoming the going rate. It’s undeniable that Seattle was better with DK than sans DK. Jaxon Smith-Njigba should step into the No. 1 role, but he is a slot player.”
I know many of you were and continue to be DK Metcalf fans — some of you were and don’t continue to be — and I’m not here to dump on him again. He’s not a Seahawk anymore and we can move on.
However, this article needs a look back to JSN’s role change and the impact that the DK trade had on his future. Why were so many people convinced that DK made life easier for JSN instead of the other way around? JSN was a better draft prospect, had been better at football than DK his entire life (not an insult, JSN was better than everyone at football), is a better route runner, has better hands, better technique, and is better at getting open.
Did the entire argument boil down to: “Fast guy run far, leave more space for smaller guy?”
And the “JSN is ONLY a slot guy” narrative was also based on analytics that tend to mislead and confuse writers instead of make them better analysts, like these nuggets from “Fantasy Pros”:
I was very bullish about Smith-Njigba last year, but I find myself worried about his 2025 outlook. The Seattle Seahawks are going to lean on their ground game more this season after ranking sixth in pass rate over expectation and fourth in neutral passing rate in 2024. Even if Smith-Njigba proves that he can pick up right where he left off, his raw target volume could dip this season.
I'm also worried about him playing more on the perimeter this season. Last year, during that insane stretch, he ran out of the slot on 81.3% of his snaps. Last year, his separation (0.035 vs. 0.068) and route win rate (9.4% vs. 10.4%) were notably worse as a perimeter wide receiver, while also noting that his overall numbers in these metrics were surprisingly poor. Overall, among 112 qualifying receivers, he ranked 62nd in separation score and 88th in route win rate. Smith-Njigba could return low-end WR2 value this season, but he's a tough player to click as a high-end WR2/ borderline WR1.
“Hey guys, I don’t know about his 350-yard game in the Rose Bowl. Did you check out his separation score and his coaxial cable timetable?”
I can be fair about numbers and analytics. I’d be a hypocrite to say that writers should never consider all the stats.
But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and JSN being an 80% slot player one season doesn’t mean he’s only a slot player. It means he was a slot player for that season. Tyler Lockett made the same transition. And Lockett was not even close to the same prospect as JSN in 2023 and especially not after his Pro Bowl season in 2024.
If we are talking about JSN 20 years from now, let’s hope it’s a conversation about the player who broke the 40-time myth.
Speed is important in the NFL, as is athleticism and size. It’s crazy to think that a sport as physical as football wouldn’t demand players who are fast, strong, and big. It’s practically sumo wrestling in the trenches and a foot race on the edges, we get it and I support it.
But Cooper Kupp ran a 4.62 at the combine and JSN ran a 4.48 in the generous confines of a pro day and that’s two of your last five Offensive Player of the Year winners. Amon-Ra St. Brown ran a 4.51. Justin Jefferson is fast, but he’s not that fast. He’s not DK Metcalf fast.
Success demands far more from a receiver than speed. Otherwise, why do I keep seeing a “slow outside receiver” catching passes without a defender within 10 yards of him?
JSN has to have changed the way that people think about outside receivers, and receivers in general, because even as a prospect and a third-year player who everybody liked, he wasn’t getting the respect of someone to be loved…or to be feared.
I loved Smith-Njigba as a prospect and going into 2025, but even now I am reminded that sometimes I need to pump the brakes on believing that I can predict any player’s future success based on speed scores and analytics. The good ones prove you right, but the GREAT ONES prove you wrong.
JSN is one of the great ones. He’s not even four seasons into his Seahawks career and I’m convinced he’s already one of the greatest in franchise history.
Those are Largent shoes to fill.
Seaside Joe 2774
Who’s on your Mount Rushmore?
I love that people put so much belief behind testing numbers. I’ve said this a hundred times, but it is still not a fully accepted belief. There are football players, and there are athletes that play football. Sometimes there are football players who are athletes, but the most important quality they have if these athletes are very successful at the game is that they are FOOTBALL players. I won’t comment specifically on DK but many know how I’ve felt about him going back to his last two years on the Hawks. Another quality that is highly valued by JS and even more so by MM is football intelligence. Kupp and JSN have genius level football intelligence. Spoon, E Jones, Drake Thomas. These players lack the physical traits, size, speed, etc… But they can play faster and make up for lacking those traits by playing ahead of the play. They are able to read and move before other players with more size or speed even know where they need to be. I’ll take a football player over an athlete who plays football any day.