If there’s any participant on the Seattle Seahawks offense who might be watched intently, it’s vast receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Taken with the twentieth general choose 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. Underneath a brand new teaching workers and with helpful expertise below his belt, expectations are excessive that JSN might be an enormous a part of the offense transferring ahead.
To this point, JSN has been one of many standouts of the offseason exercise program. Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald had nothing however optimistic issues to say about Smith-Njigba’s performances at OTAs and minicamp.
“JSN’s an amazing participant and [we’re] anticipating huge issues out of him,” Macdonald mentioned (by way of ESPN’s Brady Henderson). “He’s had an amazing offseason, works his tail off. His follow habits are superior. Shifting potential is fairly elite. I believe we received a very cool plan for him.”
Whereas there have been ups and downs by way of efficiency and targets for Smith-Njigba, he was nonetheless a helpful a part of Seattle’s passing recreation. Regardless of being the third choice amongst Seattle’s vast receiver group, JSN led the Seahawks in third down targets and had 16 third-down conversions, which was second-most on the crew behind Tyler Lockett. In truth, solely 17 gamers had extra third-down conversions in 2023 than JSN.
“He’s only a onerous cowl, man,” Macdonald mentioned. “He can play outdoors, inside, and Grubb does an amazing job of type of transferring guys round and discovering some matchups. His decrease physique energy and adaptability and having the ability to speed up and clearly simply having nice arms and having the ability to observe the ball is fairly spectacular.”
Smith-Njigba was reeling in touchdowns for enjoyable in a single explicit OTA session, and whereas these are non-contact practices it’s nonetheless onerous 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 prime two targets on the crew.
