The 2025 NFL season has delivered us some exemplary moments, but it's also a sign of former Buckeye Jaxon Smith-Njigba becoming an elite NFL wide receiver.
Former Ohio State and current Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba may just be on a path to becoming the NFL’s next great wide receiver.
After Monday night’s game against the Houston Texans, Smith-Njigba is obliterating wide eceivers across the league with a leading 819 receiving yards.
The next best? Ja’Marr Chase with 629 yards.
Amidst this torrid run, he’s either getting close to setting records, or he’s already on his way to doing so.
Let’s break it down and show just how elite Smith-Njigba has been though seven games.
- He’s averaging a league-best 117 receiving yards per game, which would be the seventh best in NFL history, and fourth since the merger in 1970.
- He is the 21st player in NFL history to record three straight games of 120-plus receiving yards. No player has registered four straight games at that number.
- He is already one game away from tying a Seahawks’ franchise record six 100-yard games that was set by Hall of Famer Steve Largent in 1979.
- He’s on pace to crack 1,989 receiving yards, which would break the single season record that Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson set back in 2012, where he recorded 1,964.
But what’s also so incredible about this recent run that the former Buckeye legend is on, is the underlying numbers.
Smith-Njigba is second amongst all receivers with 4.51 yards per route run against Man Coverage, but he’s leading by a wide margin in yards per route run against Zone and Press Coverages.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s destroying opposing defenses though, as one of his major selling points as he entered the NFL Draft was his otherworldly route running capabilities.
Not only that, there’s an extra jump to his game – looking one step quicker than everyone else on the field. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that quarterback Sam Darnold is throwing dimes where no one else except him can catch it.
Former NFL defensive back Darius Butler, who is also a personality on The Pat McAfee Show went through the numbers that defined the untouchable connection that Smith-Njigba and Darnold have.
- 14 Explosive Plays
- 36 First Downs
- 41.3 EPA
Those three, along with the 819 yards lead all of the NFL’s quarterback-to-wide-receiver duos.
We should’ve seen this coming when, as a Buckeye, he hauled in 15 receptions for 347 yards and three touchdowns at the 2022 Rose Bowl.
Because after what we’ve seen through seven games, his former teammates Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave may be right on Smith-Njigba being the best receiver to come out of Columbus.