All three of Ohio State’s starting wide receivers from the 2021 season are now officially first-round NFL draft picks.
One year after Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave went back-to-back with the 10th and 11th overall picks in the 2022 NFL draft, Jaxon Smith-Njigba joined them as a first-round pick when he was selected by the Seattle Seahawks with the No. 20 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft on Thursday night.
.@jaxon_smith1 is the first WR taken in the 2023 #NFLDraft. @invisalign
— NFL (@NFL) April 28, 2023
: 2023 #NFLDraft on NFLN/ESPN/ABC
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Smith-Njigba was the first wide receiver selected in the 2023 NFL draft. He was one of three Buckeyes taken in the first round, joining quarterback C.J. Stroud (No. 2, Houston Texans) and offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr. (No. 6, Arizona Cardinals).
It marks the second straight year the Seahawks have drafted a Buckeye, joining 2022 fifth-round pick Tyreke Smith. He’s now one of three Buckeyes on the Seahawks’ roster, also joining offseason free-agent acquisition Dre’Mont Jones.
JSN is Ohio State’s third first-round wide receiver in a two-year span even though he caught just five passes for 43 yards in 2022 due to a hamstring injury that sidelined him for nearly the entire season. NFL scouts had more than enough opportunity to see Smith-Njigba’s elite talent in 2021, when he broke Ohio State’s single-season school records by catching 95 passes for 1,606 yards, highlighted by a 15-catch, 347-yard, three-touchdown bowl-record performance against Utah in the Rose Bowl, which would end up being his last full game as a Buckeye.
Now fully healthy, which he proved with an exceptional performance at the NFL Scouting Combine that reestablished him as one of the 2023 NFL draft’s top prospects, Smith-Njigba will look to follow in the footsteps of Wilson and Olave by immediately establishing himself as one of the NFL’s top wide receivers in his rookie season.
