Here’s what’s true about Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s historic season: He was the best receiver in the league and deservedly won Offensive Player of the Year. He finished with the eighth-most receiving yards in a single season in NFL history – smashing the Seattle Seahawks’ franchise record two-thirds of the way through the year – and accounted for more than one-third of Sam Darnold’s targets. Seahawks fans adore him.
Here’s what’s also true: The best receiver in the league has a strong case to make for the best receiver contract. And NFL fans don’t love the risk that comes along with investing that much into one player.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba believes he deserves to be top-paid WR
I’d caution fans to keep those two beliefs separate, though. What I mean by that is this: The idea that winning becomes more difficult paying JSN a ton of money isn’t misguided – but the idea that moving on from him makes you better right now, or that he’s easily replaceable and not worth the money, is.
Smith-Njigba told WFAA, a Dallas-based sports radio station near his hometown, that he’s not too focused on getting an extension done with Seattle right now, but is confident he’ll get what he deserves.
“I believe I deserve to be the highest paid at my position,” Smith-Njigba said. “I would play this game for free, but you don’t have to. I’m learning to be a good businessman, and we need that check at the end of the day.”
He deserves it. Think he should take less to help the team? Ask yourself whether you’d cut a check in half to give the rest to a coworker. Especially when you’re given the opportunity to gain generational wealth. Always easier to tell people to give away money that isn’t yours (trust me, I complain all the time about MLB spending!).
Frankly, there’s no debate that JSN is worth the money, nor do I think there’s a fair debate to be had about whether taking that money makes you a bad teammate. He’s at the top of his profession in a multi-billion dollar industry. What is worth exploring is whether a team paying a receiver that much money closes its Super Bowl window.
The Bengals are widely referenced with the money they have invested in wide receiver, but you could use the exercise for a number of teams: paying a top receiver has a pretty poor positive correlation with winning Super Bowls. There’s been just one recent example of a top-paid receiver getting a ring: A.J. Brown won a Super Bowl with the Eagles as the sixth-highest paid receiver in the NFL. Julio Jones made it as the league’s top-paid receiver in 2016, though the Falcons infamously fell to the Patriots.
That’s true. It’s tough. Really tough. Three things I’d throw in here though:
• First, “Super Bowl winners” is a category skewed, particularly in the AFC, by the same few teams. Sure, there are teams with expensive receivers who didn’t get to a Super Bowl. But there are lots of teams without them who didn’t because some variation of Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes was always in the way. It doesn’t matter if a team is complete – the Ravens were complete a few years back, the Bills have been a monster – when it’s Mahomes and the Chiefs dominating.
• Secondly, JSN isn’t easily replaceable and I think we’re letting a bit of recency bias in with thinking as much. The Seahawks spent 11 years trying to get back to a Super Bowl and couldn’t do it because there was a talent gap between them and the Rams and 49ers. You don’t close that gap by trading away one of your most talented players, and you don’t just replace that talent with a rookie. The franchise had never seen the production Smith-Njigba gave them this year, and spent the entire season waiting for a second receiver to try to close the gap. It didn’t happen.
• Finally, the Seahawks are in a Super Bowl window, and those windows are fleeting. This is what every single general manager works toward – rolling the dice, drafting and developing, and then seizing an opportunity. You’ll do everything you can for as long as you can to keep it open, because eventually it closes for everyone.
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