Nearly half of the Seattle Seahawks’ passing offense goes through one player, and the people running it sound fine with that. Jaxon Smith-Njigba has 405 of the team’s 828 receiving yards through three games, per Pro Football Reference. That is 48.9 percent, on a team with a backfield still sorting itself out.
The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue flagged the number in her NFL Team Utility Tiers and described it as the plan. New offensive coordinator Brian Fleury came from San Francisco, and Rodrigue wrote that his system is drawn from Kyle Shanahan’s, including a habit of sending a heavy share of targets to a mismatch player. She added that the approach holds up until a defense shows it can stop him.
Why the Seahawks keep feeding Jaxon Smith-Njigba
No defense has done it yet. Smith-Njigba had eight catches for 122 yards and a touchdown against the Patriots, nine for 155 and three scores at Arizona with Drew Lock filling in for an injured Sam Darnold, and 10 for 128 and two touchdowns in the 33-31 loss at Washington. He and Jerry Rice are the only players with at least 120 yards and a touchdown in each of a season’s first three games, according to the team’s website.
Mike Macdonald was asked this week whether that is too much for one receiver. “I think I got this question last year,” the coach said, according to the Seattle Times. “Jax is off to a great start. We’ve got great players around him. The ball’s going to find other guys at some point.”
The Times put his target share at 37.9 percent, the highest in the NFL, and his 36 targets are three times as many as any teammate’s. PFF grades him at 92.7 overall this season, first among 85 qualified receivers. None of it is new. He was the AP Offensive Player of the Year in 2025, when he had 1,793 yards and accounted for 44.1 percent of Seattle’s receiving yards, The Athletic’s Andrew Destin reported.
Seattle could use the help. Rodrigue noted the run game has a 34.2 percent success rate and two lost fumbles, and rookie Jadarian Price is ruled out for Sunday’s home game against the Chargers. Cooper Kupp is second on the team with 101 receiving yards, and no other Seahawk has more than 90.
