A lot has changed about Seattle’s offense since the end of the 2024 season, but one piece still returns in 2025: Its leading receiver.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba paced the Seahawks in receiving yards last year, racking up 1,130 of them with six touchdowns. He tied Seattle’s franchise record for receptions with 100.
D.K. Metcalf, who led the Seahawks in receiving yards in 2020, 2022 and 2023 before trailing Smith-Njigba with 992 in 2024, is now a Pittsburgh Steeler. Tyler Lockett, who led in 2021 and collected 8,594 yards in 10 seasons in Seattle, is now a Tennessee Titan. 2024 starting quarterback Geno Smith is now a Las Vegas Raider.
Seattle signed a new co-star at wide receiver in Cooper Kupp, a new quarterback in Sam Darnold and hired a new offensive coordinator in Klint Kubiak. But Smith-Njigba will be at the center of its passing attack in 2025.
"I'm super excited," Smith-Njigba said in April to Seahawks.com about the upcoming season. "I love to play ball, love the Seahawks, love having 'Seahawks' on my chest. Talking to (head coach) Mike (Macdonald) and (general manager) John (Schneider), the direction we want to go, I'm all on board with that. I can see it from the first day with Klint; he's just on top of it, ready, telling us what to expect from him, and also what he expects from us.”
The same tools that made Smith-Njigba excel at Ohio State propelled him to the forefront of Seattle’s attack.
Before tying Lockett’s 2020 campaign for Seattle’s single-season receptions record, Smith-Njigba set the Buckeyes’ single-season receptions and receiving yards records in 2021, racking up 95 catches for 1,606 yards and nine touchdowns. He capped that year with the greatest individual receiving performance in Ohio State history – and one of the greatest in college football history overall – with 15 receptions for 347 yards and three touchdowns to pull OSU to a 48-45 victory over Utah in the Rose Bowl.
A hamstring injury reaggravated during the season took away almost all of his final year with the Buckeyes in 2022, but Seattle still saw plenty of reason to select him with the No. 20 overall pick in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft. He had a steady rookie season despite coming off the bench for most of the year, recording 63 receptions for 628 yards and four touchdowns.
Smith-Njigba posted three 100-yard games for the Seahawks in 2024, featured in the same slot position he’s played since he was in Columbus. But the offense was middling as a whole, ranked 18th in points per game (22.1), 14th in yards per game (332.2) and 14th in yards per play (5.5). The Seahawks were 13th in yards per pass attempt (7.4) with Smith under center.
“Starting over with a clean slate is exciting,” Smith-Njigba said. “I get to prove myself once again to this team and this organization, and for me, my eyes always light up at that opportunity."
Kupp arrives from the Los Angeles Rams with one of the best receiving seasons in NFL history to his credit from 2021, when he paced the league in all receiving categories with 145 receptions for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns. But thanks in large part to injuries, he hasn’t posted a 900-yard season since, with 67 receptions for 710 yards and six touchdowns in 12 games in 2024. Still, at age 32, he’ll make a savvy complement to Smith-Njigba.
“I think the first thing that struck me was he plays a lot stronger – and is a lot stronger – than people know about Jaxon,” Kupp said on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” in June. “There’s a play strength that comes along with that, being able to be on the field. His decisiveness and his belief in himself in what he can do, and then being able to go out there and just make it happen.
“Incredibly competitive, and that’s one of those things as a receiver, you get into some positions where, ‘Hey, I’m in press or I’ve got a plan, boom, I hit my first move, I hit my counter and it’s still not there.’ But the competitiveness to say, ‘I just know I’m not going to lose. I’m going to find a way to win.’ Jaxon has that.”
.@jaxon_smith1 reminds @CooperKupp of another wide receiver he used to line up with pic.twitter.com/gW7B4a00ah
— Good Morning Football (@gmfb) June 23, 2025
Smith-Njigba is also soaking up all he can from the veteran.
"You go down the list of teammates that I've had, I've been blessed," Smith-Njigba said. "To have Coop here this year, it's the cherry on top. I can't wait to learn from him, I've already learned a ton from him in just two days and some text messages. Just to get a different perspective on the game is something I'll always value and respect. I can't wait.”
Kubiak arrives in Seattle after his first year as a full-time offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints, though he also served as passing game coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers in 2023. Thus far, Smith-Njigba has enjoyed his scheme, which also aims to accentuate a running game around running back Kenneth Walker III, who missed six games with injury last year.
“It's built for tough players, smashmouth players, players who want to win, players who are going to get the job done, plain and simple, whether that's blocking a safety or whatever is asked from you,” Smith-Njigba said of Kubiak’s scheme. “We've got a lot of tough players on this team just looking around this offense. It's just a tough, hard-nosed offense, and we've got the players to fit that style.”
Darnold replacing Smith is the last bit of adjustment to make. Darnold’s had a rocky NFL career to this point, struggling in three seasons as a New York Jet then two as a Carolina Panther before riding the bench for a season in San Francisco, where he worked with Kubiak. It appeared becoming a journeyman would be the ceiling for the No. 3 overall draft pick in 2018.
Then, in his seventh year last year, Darnold started torching the NFL seemingly out of nowhere with the Minnesota Vikings. He finished the regular season with a 68.1% completion rate, 4,153 yards and 35 touchdowns against 12 interceptions. But a grotesque first-round playoff performance at Detroit (43.9% completions, 4 yards per pass attempt) left him a free agent and Seattle scooped him up. He’ll be out to prove he can replicate the highs of his late-blooming 2024 campaign.
“Sam’s doing a great job,” Macdonald said in June. “Sam has a great feel for the offense right now in terms of, like, growing every day. So you can feel the growth. You can feel the improvement, the confidence that we’re doing on that side of the ball and we’re growing. And it’s exciting to work with. He’s a heck of a competitor.”
But with so much newness swirling about Seattle, Smith-Njigba is set to be its stabilizing constant.
