JSN, Cooper Kupp carry a heavy burden: Seahawks WR preview

It could be a career-season for Jaxon Smith-Njigba and it also sorta has to be

The Seahawks are going on 50 years of sticking to their first impression: We’ve always kind of liked Seattle’s quarterback but loved his top receivers. Jim Zorn has a loyal base of local appreciators, whereas Steve Largent is in the Hall of Fame.

That lineage of an underrated quarterback and 1,000-yard receivers tracks all the way up to Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf parting with the team two years after the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson. Lockett, who lasted just as long in Seattle (10 seasons) as Wilson, ranks second in franchise receiving yards. Metcalf is sixth, but averaged just as many yards per game (65) as Largent.

Now we appear to be entering the next phase of that carbon copy:

• Sam Darnold could be good

• But Jaxon Smith-Njigba should be great

As hotly debated as Metcalf’s value to the Seahawks was while he was in Seattle, there’s no question that the team got as much net profit from his trade this season as they could ask for:

• 2025 2nd round pick

• Didn’t have to pay his $33 AAV/$60m fully guaranteed contract

• If signing Cooper Kupp was a reply to that trade, then the guaranteed number ($17.5m) is roughly one-quarter of that number

So just in terms of a net value, not a total value, it’s going to be very difficult for Metcalf to be worth more than his $31 million cap hit in 2026. And pretty easy for the team’s current receivers, including JSN and Kupp, to be worth at least as much as their salaries.

The Seahawks wide receiver room has taken a lot of hits this offseason and cited as a “downgrade” compared to both where they were a year ago and what Sam Darnold had in Minnesota. It’s true there is no Justin Jefferson, but I’m not sure I would agree with either of those statements.

Excitement/Worry Levels

Jaxon Smith-Njigba: 9.001 excited

One area where we could see a significant boost in JSN’s production this year is on out routes and horizontal routes in the Klint Kubiak offense. Here’s an excerpt about JSN from Jacob Gibbs, comparing him to Chris Olave on the Saints last year:

“Olave saw his horizontally-breaking route rate increase with Kubiak from 32% to 45%. He was good on those routes, just didn’t do them as much. JSN had a 32% rate last year, which is really low…I think JSN is going to feast on out routes. Olave was targeted on 38% of his out routes and JSN has an even higher average separation score on out routes than Olave.”

JSN was actually more productive than Olave last year, even accounting for Olave missing nine games, but Olave saw huge increases in rate stats under Kubiak:

• His yards per target increased from 8.1 to 9.1

• His success rate increased from 53% to 66%

• His Catch Rate increased from 63% to 72.7%

All three of those jumps are HUGE for a wide receiver. If the Saints had been one of the healthier offenses last season, instead of the least healthy, Olave could have easily challenged for 1,300+ yards under Kubiak. We’ll just never know, but we might see that success translate over to JSN this season.

JSN’s 2024 numbers with Ryan Grubb were 8.2 yards per target, 58.4% success rate, and 73% catch rate. We already know he can create separation and has great hands. Now he might be falling into a system perfectly designed for him to get 150+ targets and to catch 75% of those.

It seems likely that the 2025 offseason, from hiring Kubiak to trading Metcalf and signing Kupp, was largely formulated around the idea that the most talented player on the entire offense is Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Film clip of the day: Is JSN the Luka Doncic of receivers? From pre-2023 draft by The Athletic Football Show

Cooper Kupp: 8/10 okay with it!

DK Metcalf is fast but he can’t teach JSN how to be faster or how to play to his strengths as a receiver who is not fast. There might be only one former All-Pro receiver in the NFL who could speak to JSN from experience…

It should not matter that much if Kupp only has 70 catches for 700 yards. Lockett only had 49 catches for 600 yards last season and his cap hit was twice as big as Kupp’s.

Kupp is going to be a lot better at avoiding “negative plays” than Metcalf, he’s going to be more valuable in the red zone and a better run blocker than Lockett, and he’s possibly the best slot receiver coach in the NFL. Then there’s the upside to Kupp, which is that Darnold dumps off so many passes to him that he actually does get to 1,000 yards.

The worst case scenario for Kupp is just a lot easier to swallow than the worst case scenario for extending Metcalf.

We could see a lot more deep crossing routes like this one:

Club 2 (Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Tory Horton, Jake Bobo): 5/10 skeptical that Seattle has adequate depth here

There is a not-so-distant timeline where Elijah Arroyo is the team’s second or third receiver. As comforting as it would be to say that Horton is a massive steal, there’s just no good evidence for that. These are the really huge day three, round 5 or later drafted wide receiver hits in the past 15 years:

• Antonio Brown

• Tyreek Hill

• Stefon Diggs

• Puka Nacua

That IS the entire list. So it happens about once every four years. And that’s league wide, among 32 teams, not just one team. As far as Ricky White III goes, the best seventh round receiver since 2010 is Jauan Jennings or Rishard Matthews.

Objectively, we have no reason to think that Horton is going to be a major conrtributor to the offense until it actually happens. If he turns out to be Darius Slayton or Russell Gage or Kenny Stills, even that would be rare and good. So kicking players like MVS to the curb because they’re not rookies, it’s too soon for that and no, I wouldn’t be excited for MVS either.

JSN may be pushing 170 targets and Kupp won’t be far behind if he’s healthy. This could also mean more opportunities for Kenneth Walker in the passing game.

Club 3 (Ricky White, Steven Sims, Dareke Young, Cody White, Tyron Broden, Montorie Foster Jr, John Rhys Plumlee)

Indeed these are players on Seattle’s 90-man roster.

With a lot of luck, there will be a future edition of a post like this one that necessitates a greater amount of excitement about one of these receivers.

Seaside Joe 2344