If there’s any participant on the Seattle Seahawks offense who will probably be watched intently, it’s large receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Taken with the twentieth total decide of the 2023 NFL Draft, Smith-Njigba was the Seahawks’ first receiver taken within the first spherical since Koren Robinson again in 2001. Having overcome a wrist fracture in preseason, Smith-Njigba caught 63 passes for 628 yards and 4 touchdowns in his rookie marketing campaign. Beneath a brand new teaching workers and with invaluable expertise below his belt, expectations are excessive that JSN will probably be an enormous a part of the offense shifting ahead.
So far, JSN has been one of many standouts of the offseason exercise program. Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald had nothing however constructive issues to say about Smith-Njigba’s performances at OTAs and minicamp.
“JSN’s an important participant and [we’re] anticipating huge issues out of him,” Macdonald mentioned (through ESPN’s Brady Henderson). “He’s had an important offseason, works his tail off. His apply habits are superior. Shifting capability is fairly elite. I believe we acquired a extremely cool plan for him.”
Whereas there have been ups and downs by way of efficiency and targets for Smith-Njigba, he was nonetheless a invaluable a part of Seattle’s passing recreation. Regardless of being the third choice amongst Seattle’s large receiver group, JSN led the Seahawks in third down targets and had 16 third-down conversions, which was second-most on the workforce behind Tyler Lockett. The truth is, solely 17 gamers had extra third-down conversions in 2023 than JSN.
“He’s only a laborious cowl, man,” Macdonald mentioned. “He can play exterior, inside, and Grubb does an important job of sort of shifting guys round and discovering some matchups. His decrease physique energy and suppleness and having the ability to speed up and clearly simply having nice arms and having the ability to monitor the ball is fairly spectacular.”
Smith-Njigba was reeling in touchdowns for enjoyable in a single specific OTA session, and whereas these are non-contact practices it’s nonetheless laborious to not get enthusiastic about what JSN can do heading into his second season. It’ll be fascinating to see if he supplants Tyler Lockett as one of many high two targets on the workforce.
