Commentary: Wowing people has always been one of Jaxon Smith-Njigba's hallmarks

Everybody has a Jaxon Smith-Njigba story. They all just sound the same. Because this man is a traveling magician, wowing audiences from Texas to Ohio to Seattle with the same repeatable routine. His repertoire does not include superhuman size or speed, which makes the reveal even more mystifying. Though his measurables seem unremarkable, he's more than meets the eye. His tricks — a one-handed stab of a blazing bullet, a disappearing act in the end zone, a tightrope walk along the sideline — were on display last Sunday in the Seahawks' 31-27 NFC championship game win over the Los Angeles Rams. The 6-foot, 197-pound savant secured 10 catches (on 12 targets) for 153 yards and a touchdown. But it's not the numbers that perplex you. It's the infinite supply of rabbits he keeps pulling from his hat. It's the one-handed snag along the sideline as he hurtles out of bounds. The 42-yard basket catch while bracing for a blow. Even the catch that didn't count, as Smith-Njigba skied — up, up, up — to snare a Sam Darnold dart feet outside the end zone, then launch the ball into the bleachers in one continuous whip. The balletic body control. The graceful, gliding strides that somehow blow by sprinters. The magic in his movements. The je ne sais quoi. "It's kind of become lore around here, but I told our offensive coordinator the first time I ever laid eyes on him, 'That kid's going to play on Sundays,'" said Rodney Webb, his former coach at Rockwall (Texas) High School, who first saw the skinny receiver at a youth camp in 2016. "With Jaxon, it's never been freakish measurables or blinding speed or anything. It's just always the 'it' factor. It's really almost an undefinable quality that you see to this day on the field." The fields change. The stages change. But the tricks stay the same. That one-handed stab against the Rams? Dallas Morning News reporter Joseph Hoyt has seen something similar. In Smith-Njigba's senior season at Rockwall in 2019, the five-star recruit collected 104 catches, 2,094 receiving yards and 39 total touchdowns in just 13 games. His unforgettable first impression may sound familiar. "I've seen a lot of great players, and Jaxon is the most impressive player I've ever seen. It was a spectacle, dude, every Friday night," Hoyt told The Seattle Times this week. "One of the first plays I ever saw him make, he goes on this fade route and just effortlessly does a one-handed catch, but keeps his feet in, this tightrope ridiculous catch. "It ended up being 'SportsCenter's' No. 1 play that night, because it was just so stupid. But that was every Friday night, man. Effortless." Effortless enough to betray belief. Which is why, then and now, Smith-Njigba's brilliance goes beyond the catches that counted. "His first play that kind of blew everybody's mind was in his freshman year," Webb said. "He caught a touchdown pass, and it was such an unbelievable catch on the sideline that two of the officials paused, looked at each other, and then both of them signaled incomplete. It was like, 'There's no way that he caught that.' But he did. "There were probably five or six times in his high school career that he made unbelievable catches for touchdowns that got ruled either incomplete or out of bounds, because people just could not fathom what he had done." The reel of unfathomable feats, of Smith-Njigba stories, of magic tricks, could crash YouTube. There was the playoff game against powerhouse Allen High in his senior season, in which Smith-Njigba snatched a one-handed fade for the first of six touchdowns inside AT&T Stadium. Or his first touchdown as a freshman at Ohio State, in which he tapped his right toe inside the end zone against Nebraska to negate inertia. Or the entire 2022 Rose Bowl, in which the sophomore incinerated Utah for 15 catches, 347 receiving yards and three touchdowns. There were all the rabbits and reveals we simply didn't see. Said Braedyn Locke, his Rockwall quarterback: "Even outside of games, when it would be practice or one-on-one throwing sessions, he would make so many crazy catches like that on the regular that it would become a normalcy." But it wasn't normal, even at Ohio State — where Smith-Njigba, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jameson Williams, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka all shared a wide receiver room. In 2021, Wilson called Smith-Njigba "the most natural athlete I've ever seen." Wilson and Olave have both declared him the best of the Buckeyes' wideouts. "He plays wideout, but he's like an artist when he runs routes," said South Florida coach Brian Hartline, Smith-Njigba's wide receivers coach at Ohio State. "Because he's always manipulating somebody. He's always playing the body language game and the mental game." Which means there's a method to his magic. Hoyt believes Smith-Njigba's genius revolves around physical efficiency. "He's not like George Pickens, where he's 6-4, can jump a 42-inch vertical. He's not like Tyreek Hill, where he's 5-9 but runs a 4.2 40(-yard dash)," Hoyt said. "He just has no wasted movements. Like, zero. Every single movement he makes is in the service of something. I think that's kind of the key to him." Of course, there can be more than one key. According to seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady, a key is the sinewy wide receiver's consistent shoulder plane, a poker face for unpredictable route running. "(He's) so graceful with his body control," Brady said during the Fox Sports broadcast last week. "He's like an ice skater out there when I see him run routes. He glides. His shoulder plane never dips. It's always the same height. A lot of receivers, when they run, if they're speeding up or stopping, their shoulder planes will rise or fall. He maintains the same shoulder plane when he runs his route. It's really hard for any defensive back to get a beat on what he's doing." According to Locke and Hartline, another key is more clichéd. That magic may be embedded in his bones. But he hasn't wasted it; he's outworked everyone. "I can honestly tell you I wouldn't be in the position I am today if I hadn't played with Jaxon," said Locke, currently a quarterback at Tarleton State. "That's not just to say he made me look better. From a mentality standpoint, a leadership standpoint, a confidence standpoint … I was a different athlete, having been around Jaxon. I carried myself with a different expectation. He retaught me what working hard looked like." Added Hartline: "He's heavy-handed. He was probably my best blocker. He was physical. He was just a competitor. Whatever the job description was, he was going to be the best at it. Period." According to Webb, one key was an absolute absence of ego. "I think at some point I heard somebody refer to him as the anti-diva, and I've always thought, 'Yep, that's a really good way to describe Jaxon.' He's the anti-diva," Webb said. "He's an easy person to root for — especially the people in Rockwall, Texas, and the people who have known him for the last 10 years." The traveling magician has been sawing defenses in half for a decade straight. So much so that the same confounding question remains relevant. "He was so damn good that it got to a point where we started asking people, 'Is he truly unguardable?' " Hoyt said. "Especially because everyone knew he was going to get the ball. Is he this insane thing you can't cover?" Of course, there's one way to nullify Smith-Njigba. But it's not done by defenses. "Frankly, if (the Seahawks) just would have thrown him the ball as a rookie, he would have been Rookie of the Year. They decided to not throw it to him, so that's what happens," said Hartline, after Smith-Njigba caught 63 passes for 628 yards and four touchdowns as a rookie in 2023. "The more you target Jaxon, the better that offense is going to operate." The evidence is everywhere. After cutting ties with wide receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, Smith-Njigba exploded in his third season in Seattle, leading the NFL with a franchise-record 1,793 receiving yards. A first team All-Pro and Offensive Player of the Year favorite, Smith-Njigba will be asked to make more magic on the sport's biggest stage. On the other side stands New England Patriots standout cornerback Christian Gonzalez. Come Super Bowl LX, he'll have a Smith-Njigba story of his own. "That's the crazy part: I see him make catches and plays and I'm like, 'Gosh, I've seen him do that [in person],' " Locke said. "This is the best this game has to offer, and he's the same player. He's making the same catches. He's making the same moves. He's making guys miss. It's really, really, really surreal for me. It's almost like you can't even believe what you're watching. It kind of is déjà vu." Locke recognizes these rabbits. He'll see more soon.