‘Unguardable’ Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba outpacing his historic 2025

Coming off a historic 2025 campaign, Seattle Seahawks star wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba is off to an even more dominant start to 2026.

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The reigning AP Offensive Player of the Year continued his blistering pace with nine catches for 150 yards and a touchdown in Seattle’s 20-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night. For the season, Smith-Njigba now has 867 receiving yards and eight touchdown catches.

That makes Smith-Njigba the first player in the Super Bowl era with at least 850 receiving yards and eight TD catches through his team’s first seven games of a season, according to Stathead. He has the second-most receiving yards through seven games since the 1970 NFL merger, trailing only Tyreek Hill’s 902 receiving yards through Miami’s first seven games of 2023.

“He’s tremendous,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said. “He’s tremendous. I don’t know how else to describe him. Like, he’s had some adversity this week. Just going to leave it like that. Just really proud of him as a person. He’s a person, competitor, teammate. How do you not just have the most respect for the guy and love him for how he operates.”

Through seven games last year, Smith-Njiga had 819 receiving yards and four TDs. He finished with a franchise-record 1,793 receiving yards, the eighth-most in a single season in NFL history.

This year, Smith-Njigba is on pace for 2,105 receiving yards. That would break Calvin Johnson’s NFL single-season record of 1,964 receiving yards, which he set with the Detroit Lions in 2012, back when the league played a 16-game slate.

Smith-Njigba has 231 more receiving yards than any other NFL player this season.

“He’s unguardable,” Seahawks standout safety Nick Emmanwori said. “It’s pretty amazing to see. I’m sitting there thinking like, wow, this is a potential Hall of Famer. He’s a great, great receiver.

“And knowing that he’s double-teamed and they’re sending cloud (coverage) his way and he’s still making plays, it’s crazy. You like can’t even fathom it. So big ups to him. He’s one of one.”

Smith-Njigba had 129 receiving yards by halftime on Sunday night, which made him the fourth player in the Super Bowl era with 100-plus receiving yards in at least six of his team’s first seven games.

“He’s a great player,” Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis said. “One of the best, if not the best, receivers in the NFL. We’ve got a lot of respect for him. He showed what he’s capable of, and then some today. He’s a heck of a player.”

Smith-Njigba has accounted for 50.2% of Seattle’s receiving yards this season. That’s on pace to be the highest rate since 2000, according to NFL.com. Smith-Njigba’s 44.1% rate last season was the fifth-highest mark this century.

Some have questioned whether that means the Seahawks’ passing attack is too one-dimensional. But in the meantime, Smith-Njigba keeps racing ahead at a historic clip.

“You’d be crazy not to try to make him the primary on as many concepts as you can,” Macdonald said. “Maybe sometimes he’s on the backside of a concept and we can get to him. So yeah, let’s keep it going.”

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