JSN penalties ≠ DK penalties

On Jaxon Smith-Njigba vs DK, Seahawks injury updates, and 3rd downs

Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the NFL’s leading receiver through seven weeks and some would say the favorite to win Offensive Player of the Year. But he also has 2 penalties in the last 2 games that could be construed as “taunting” and not worth the lost yardage. Is JSN a “headcase” to be worried about or are these just blips on an otherwise phenomenal season?

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Paul Johnson: I’m a little worried: taunting, celebration etc, is JSN turning into DK Metcalf? Definitely don’t need that.

Dutcher: JSN was great as usual again. But, man, he needs to get some maturity. That penalty dunking on the goal post is a known flag for many years now. That extra point became a 45 yard kick.

Before this all begins, I’m not in favor of penalizing celebrations or even taunting. But I’m a fan of old school Survivor, so maybe I’m not the NFL’s new target audience. That being said, of course the players should know the rules and follow them and think of the team over themselves; Even if I’m not in favor of the penalties, I also don’t think a celebration has been “cool” since maybe Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco were doing them.

Now they’re all doing the same thing. It’s like saying “Let’s Go!” Okay, you’re all saying “let’s go” now fifty times a day. How did society get to this point?

The dunking penalty is actually not a flag because of taunting or celebrating. It’s there because in 2013 Jimmy Graham caused a 15-minute delay when he dunked on the goal post and caused it to move. I’m not here to defend the NFL, but in this case the rule is there because none of us want to stop watching football for 15 minutes.

That being said, only call me if JSN ever does this again. Then I’ll say he’s uncontrollable because now he’ll be thinking of this penalty every time he scores around the goal post. The first time he does it? Whatever.

zezinhom400: Someone needs to sit JSN down and get on him, hard. Once again he drew a 15-yd penalty for choosing the one TD celebration you can’t do (although don’t get me started on how stupid that is, his slam dunk was a thing of beauty, must’ve been a 40”+ vertical — he’s not 6’6” like Jimmy Graham). And although he didn’t get flagged for it, once again he spun the ball on the sidelines after a gorgeous out.

You’re allowed to spin the ball. You’re just not allowed to do it towards your opponent. I suspect that JSN will continue to spin the ball many times moving forward and it’s very easy to not do that towards your opponent, so again I don’t really care unless he gets flagged again.

By the way, someone did sit JSN down already: The Texans ripped off his helmet and a player shoved him for no reason and he didn’t try to retaliate. He just put his hands up and said “Hey, I’m not even doing anything”.

Are we all watching the same player? I don’t see a real problem with JSN.

Danno: I know you’re forgiving of JSN’s penalty, but I can’t forgive that. He already had the ball spinning penalty a short time ago. It turned an extra point into a close to 50 yard kick for 1 point. The Seahawks were up by only 8 points at one point, and had Meyers missed that long extra point it could have been costly.

Again, against better teams, this will cost us games. JSN should not try and emulate DK with stupid penalties. DK plays dumb football, JSN shouldn’t allow his incredible success go to his head and start making horrible, preventable decisions. It’s beneath him.

I’m not going to say that one 15-yard penalty is better or worse than another (maybe I will later), but I do think there’s a little recency bias at play here. JSN has taunting/unsportsman like penalties in each of the past 2 weeks, the first 2 such flags against JSN over his ENTIRE career. He has a total of 5 accepted penalties in his CAREER, compared to 27 accepted penalties (and 39 total!) for DK Metcalf: That’s 1.5 per year compared to 6 per year.

• DK had 10 offensive pass interference penalties; JSN has 0

• DK had 10 holding penalties; JSN has 1

• DK had 4 unnecessary roughness penalties; JSN has 1

• DK had 6 unsportmanlike and taunting penalties; JSN has 2

• DK had 33 penalties of 10+ yards; JSN has 4

Now as far as comparing penalties, JSN dunked a ball after scoring a touchdown and yeah, he should not do that. He also scored a touchdown.

I don’t see a comparison between Metcalf’s typical “I’m mad so I’m going to be emotional and draw a penalty because the opponent got in my head” penalty and JSN’s “I’m happy to so I’m going to try and rub it in my opponent’s face” penalty. You have to remember that while Metcalf has always been bigger and faster than everybody else, JSN has always been better than everybody else. Metcalf wasn’t even the best receiver on his college team. He wasn’t better than JSN last year. JSN may be cocky, but if he’s backing it up then he’s just confident.

They are both penalties that should be avoided. JSN’s are far more infrequent and seem easier to control because they aren’t caused by Seattle’s opponents. The flow of getting in someone’s head is going from JSN → other team, while in DK’s case it was usually someone else getting in his head. Corners would openly talk about the fact that they had less planning to do because they knew they could get into DK’s head.

Meanwhile, JSN is the most dominant receiver in the NFL this season. You have to plan for that.

If Metcalf had better hands, greater play strength, was better at the catch point, had a wider catch radius, was better at 50/50 balls, ran better routes, and was more versatile, his vastly-more-than-any-other-receiver penalties would have been easier to accept. Still not acceptable — the MOST penalties in the league — but easier to swallow.

JSN’s yards per penalty is probably 10x greater than DK’s yards per penalty. So whether you call that “forgiving” or “forgetting”, surely we can all agree that JSN has a lot more holding, taunting, and interfering to do before we compare his penalties to DK Metcalf’s.

Isaac B: I haven’t felt this kind of energy from the Seahawks since 2014. Great game! The turnovers and mistakes were a drag, but we were outplaying them so much that the turnovers and questionable calls didn’t even level the playing field.

That’s how I see it too. Good teams have bad days and lose. Great teams have bad days and win. The Seahawks are SO MUCH BETTER than the Texans that they could turn the ball over 4 times (5 if you count Drake Thomas) and the game was never in doubt. That’s remarkable. I’m not saying that the Texans are great, but they’re not bad and they were coming off of a bye. They have had one of the top defenses in the league but for all intents and purposes this was a drubbing only slowed down by correctable mistakes.

Chris H: No Love and no Spoon, and yet MacDonald’s defense still plays lights out. Just amazing. Sounds like we’ll get them back after the bye along with D-Hall, so they’ll be rocking at full strength.

Yes, Mike Macdonald is confident that those players are returning after the bye week. No update on Dareke Young, who was injured on Monday. (He’s the NFL leader in yards per kick return and Tory Horton is the leader in punt return yards.) There’s a chance that Christian Haynes and Robbie Ouzts will be designated to return from IR. No Johnathan Hankins any time soon. And maybe 4-6 weeks before an update on Rylie Mills.

zezinhom400: That said: stats aside, this may have been JSN’s best game as a pro, considering the opposition. That was Stingley and Lassiter he was schooling, and his QB was fending off Danielle Hunter and Anderson III. And on several occasions, clearly double teamed. Still was open, still got behind people, and the TV guys were doing playbacks of his breaks off the line, kind of thing we got used to seeing with Angry Doug.

For more JSN crazy stats, make sure to read the bonus Regular Joes article on Seahawks by-the-numbers that I posted on Tuesday.

“FantasyPros”, whoever that is, may be laughing, but after I did my deep dive in 2023, I said JSN would probably become the best receiver in the league. And I think we can agree that I’m anything but a Seahawks homer, at least among people who cover the team. He’s been the best receiver in Texas, the best receiver in college football and his “combine traits” have never mattered.

I’m wrong plenty of times (I thought Kenneth Walker could become the best running back) but there’s nothing surprising about JSN’s skyrocketing value because he’s been “the best” among his peers since high school.

zezinhom400: But 4 turnovers, 12 accepted penalties and then needing to overcome some pretty bad officiating (which is always a crapshoot, as Forrest says “you never know what you’re gonna get”) kept this game close and if I’m honest, seeing that 27-19 score with 4 mins to go had me anxious in a game we should have been up by 30.

The team that benefited the most from penalty yards in 2024 was Sam Darnold’s Vikings. The team that cost themselves the most by penalty yards was the 12-5 Ravens. Several other playoff teams, including the Texans, Broncos, Lions, and Moons, had issues with penalties last year.

As far as I’m aware, there’s not a ton of evidence that penalties impact performance, which does seem crazy I know. But so far the Seahawks are just an average penalty team in 2025. There are a lot of teams that are worse, so I’m not quite worried yet.

zezinhom400: One other thing: if you haven’t yet participated in the in-game chat, you’re missing a real treat. We have an outstanding community at SSJ, none of the name-calling or other inane/inappropriate behavior on so many other of these.

Thanks for the shout out!

Don Ellis: We need to get the 3rd down conversion rate figured out. 2-14 in January is not going to cut it either.

I agree that the third down conversions were not good. It just had me curious, what were the third downs again? (D=Drive)

• D1: 3rd-and-8, 7-yard completion to AJ Barner

• D3: 3rd-and-1, 1-yard run by Charbonnet, followed by 4th down conversion by Barner

• D3: 3rd-and-11, Darnold scramble doesn’t make it but Al-Shaair penalty gives Seattle a first down

• D4: 3rd-and-6, False Start by Tory Horton costs potential good conversion

• D4: 3rd-and-11, incomplete to Horton

• D5: 3rd-and-8, 19-yard completion to JSN

• D6: 3rd-and-4, incomplete pass, followed by blocked FG

• D7: 3rd-and-4, 3-yard run by Walker, followed by 4th down conversion pass to JSN

• D7: 3rd-and-6, incomplete to Horton, followed by FG make

• D8: 3rd-and-7, sack/fumble in end zone

• D9: 3rd-and-2, loss of 1 by Charbonnet, followed by FG make

• D10: 3rd-and-7, 19-yard completion to JSN

• D11: 3rd-and-14, 13-yard run by Walker

• D14: 3rd-and-7, sacked (up 27-12 at the time)

If the Seahawks had 3rd-and-4 or less, they ended up getting a first down 2 out of 4 times. On the 2 times they didn’t, they tried a field goal. Situationally, Macdonald and Kubiak may have tried to be convservative if they were in field goal range already. Teams don’t typically convert third-and-long, so I’m less concerned about the overall third down conversion rate and more of the mind that Seattle needs to do better on second down.

Jerod: No more trick plays please. Don’t know why you dial up a WR roll out pass when you’re up 14-0 and Sammy and JSN are unstoppable. Reminded me of the Jalen Milroe debacle.

Jake: I’m actually glad they did it. Every wrinkle on tape is something other teams have to plan for. Kupp and JSN love the play and probably completed it every time in practice. JSN had plenty of space as well.

I support creative play calling. I don’t think they should have done it when they were already in scoring range, on first down, and the Texans are having a problem stopping Darnold-to-JSN. Just please go up 21-0 and save the tricks for later.

Paul G: Stroud barely bothered to throw at Woolen. As well as Jobe has played, he gets targeted a lot more than Riq. It’s clear what OC’s think the weakest link is.

In this case, Tariq Woolen was target a season-high 7 times. He did only allow 2 catches for 13 yards (and had another missed tackle) but generally I’d say that C.J. Stroud didn’t have the luxury to avoid anybody because he threw the ball so many times—and never that well. Josh Jobe allowed 3 catches on 9 targets for 24 yards and he had two pass breakups.

In the comparison of Woolen and Jobe, I think Josh Jobe is still well ahead.

Grant: How can MM/KK not give K9 goal-line carries on his birthday? Not cool!

Zach Charbonnet and Walker both have a career rate of roughly 4 attempts inside the 10-yard line per touchdown. Statistically, I can’t see a reason to not give Walker a goal line carry on his birthday.

Rene Costales: Re: losing the turnover battle. Texans went 1 for 4 on fourth downs. Maybe a turnover on downs doesn’t equate to an interception or fumble but I thought several of those stops were impactful to the game last night.

I don’t think a turnover on downs is the same as a turnover, but I do think stopping the Texans on six straight plays inside the 5-yard line is probably better than a turnover.

At the end of the day, don’t turn it over four times and expect to win again.

Seaside Joe 2424