Seattle's loss to the 49ers on Sunday showcased Jaxon Smith-Njigba's importance to the Seahawks' offense. In a very lopsided time of possession for the offense, Seattle had control of the ball for 22:02, compared to San Francisco's almost 38 minutes. And with that, Smith-Njigba accounted for almost 83 percent of Seattle's receiving yards and finished Sunday's matchup with 124 yards on nine receptions. On the evening, Sam Darnold threw for 150 yards and had 16 completions.
Although Smith-Njigba's stat line is impressive, head coach Mike Macdonald said, "We're going to count on everybody, see who else steps up, so it's not the Jax show every snap."
In terms of receiving yards, this is Smith-Njigba's second-best career game, the only game where he racked up more receiving yards was in Week 9 last season where he finished the game with 180 yards on seven receptions and two touchdowns.
"Jaxon made a lot of great plays," Macdonald said. "There's opportunities for him out there, which I'm sure he'll tell you."
Smith-Njigba was involved early, with the first play of the matchup being an 18-yard pass to the receiver.
Throughout the rest of the game, he made receptions of 21, 22, 16, 2, 11, and 40 yards.
At the start of the fourth quarter, Smith-Njigba caught a pass from Darnold, but ended up having the ball knocked away by a defender.
"Just a lack of concentration," Smith-Njigba said on the fumble. "Thinking about the next move, so I'll make sure that won't happen again. The ball is very important, the most important thing, so I've got to take care of that. I'll be better."
In an attempt at a comeback win, Smith-Njigba did have a 40-yard reception, his longest of the day, before the drive ended with a Darnold fumble.
"Tough one, tough battle with a good team like the 49ers," Smith-Njigba said. "We've got a lot of stuff to clean up, myself included, so just go the drawing board and get ready for Pittsburgh next week."
While Smith-Njigba knows there's some things to work on before next Sunday, his teammates have confidence that today's fumble is not indicative of his ability.
"Jax is a resilient player," Darnold said. "He has been through a lot so far in his early career. Those are the things that we expect from him. Go out there, you're going to play fast and mistakes are going to happen, but it's about how you bounce back and I think Jax did a really good job of doing that."
Cooper Kupp, who had two receptions for 15 yards said, "Obviously [Jaxon had] a lot of really good plays. I know there's going to be ones that he wants back. He's in there sick to his stomach right now about the ones that he didn't make, but made some really good plays for us and he's just that guy. He's going to have some ups, there's going to be some downs, but his ability to stay steady through it and be able to weather the storm a bit, even when it felt like guys are trying to get after him a few different ways. Just being able to continue to win, come back, be able to talk, find a solution, and go out there and keep competing."
