Field Gulls
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is inevitable.
The Seattle Seahawks took down the Jacksonville Jaguars on the strength of the defense plus their explosive passing game. The connection between Sam Darnold and Smith-Njigba is otherworldly at the moment, and has propelled Seattle back into first in their division.
Yes, Smith-Njigba now leads the NFL with 696 receiving yards, having passed the now injured Puka Nacua in Week 6. But there are many more metrics that Smith-Njigba leads, and it’s worth asking just exactly how good could JSN’s 2025 campaign be?
I want to look at the pace for his total volume stats, the specific pairing between he and Darnold, and some of the all-time Seahawk receiving seasons.
Smith-Njigba has 3 touchdowns and 696 yards in just six games. He’s done that on a relatively low 42 catches out of 56 targets.
That means JSN’s Yards per Catch is 16.6, and his Yards per Attempt is 12.4. By contrast, Puka Nacua’s YPC is 11.3 and his YPA is 9.5.
Smith-Njigba has been balling, while being far more explosive than even the typically good WR1. Extrapolating out for the 17-game season, JSN is on pace for:
That last bit – it’s a little hard to quantify is how good JSN is at explosive plays. He has a 35+ yard reception in every game this season, the only such player.
According to the new SumerBrain – objectively awesome – Smith-Njigba had an explosive play 38% of the time the ball comes his way. That’s absurd. He’s fourth in the NFL at that metric, but the only player in the top-5 with over 30 receptions.
By the way that graphic only contains stats up to Week 5, and he had four explosives this week. It just jumped over 40%.
here’s one more for the history nerds. 40+ yard receptions is not a stat that has been diligently tracked throughout time, so take the following with a grain of salt. But the current known record for receptions of 40 or more yards in a single season is nine, by Tyreek Hill.
Smith-Njigba has five – well before the halfway point of the season.
Doug Baldwin. Tyler Lockett. DK Metcalf. Brian Blades. Steve Largent. Seattle’s had some high quality receivers in its day, and JSN has begun outpacing all of them. He just beat Lockett by 100 yards for the best six-game start to begin a season.
He’s still on his rookie contract and is already 12th in Seattle franchise history for receiving yards. At his current pace – of his entire career, mind you, not this breakout season – if he plays 161 games, the number Tyler Lockett played here, he will have...
