Seahawks camp day 2: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Olu Oluwatimi star; plus, a resilient veteran
Their top rookie was out again, on his self-imposed exile.
Two other of the Seahawks’ splashy picks from May’s draft far more than made up for Devon Witherspoon not being at the second day of training camp Thursday.
Witherspoon remained absent holding out. He has not signed his $31.8 million contract as the fifth choice in the NFL draft. He, more specifically his agent, are demanding the Seahawks pay his $20.2 million in signing-bonus guaranteed cash up front or close to it, instead of the standard installments.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba keeps making people around this camp largely forget about Witherspoon so far.
Seattle’s other first-round pick continued his beyond-his-years performances this spring and summer. The 21-year-old wide receiver made the play of Thursday’s no-pads practice. In one of the first plays of 11-on-11 scrimmaging the rookie from Ohio State got inside starting cornerback Michael Jackson on a go route. He leaped over Jackson’s tight coverage. Smith-Njigba then reached high with his left hand and pulled down Pro Bowl quarterback Geno Smith’s pass at the goal line for a 35-yard touchdown.
Teammates whooped at the latest smooth move from the Seahawks’ new, smooth slot wide receiver.
“Yeah, that was sweet,” Smith said after practice.
Coach Pete Carroll said after the Seahawks drafted him with the 20th-overall pick in May that Smith-Njigba could be the team’s third wide receiver with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett that night. That was even though he’d played just 2 1/2 games since the end of the 2021 season because of a hamstring injury he got in Ohio State’s opener last Labor Day weekend.
He’s only done more to cement that job in organized team activities, minicamps and now training camp the last two months.
“Jaxon, he’s made so many great plays. I mean that’s just who he is,” Smith said.
“And that’s just great for us as a team to have guys like him on our side.”
The competition for the starting center job changed on day two of camp, also in the favor of a rookie.
Olu Oluwatimi was snapping to Smith and anchoring the line with the first-team offense from the first play of scrimmaging Thursday through the last.
Veteran Evan Brown had been the starting center Wednesday.
Oluwatimi, the fifth-round pick from Michigan, impressed Carroll, Smith and the offense’s starters in the spring with how quickly he mastered the entire playbook. He had nailed down the line calls, the protection audibles, the snap counts and meshing with Smith before May was over.
Carroll, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and offensive line coach Andy Dickerson have been waiting to see Oluwatimi in his next test: of his physicality.
At 6 feet 2 and 309 pounds, that should not be a problem for the rookie center.
Thursday showed the coaches have decided to put Oluwatimi in the spot over Brown in the days leading into the first full-pads practice next week. At least for Thursday, anyway.
At this point, that physicality test may be a mere formality.
“I think the thing that stands out is Olu is just committed to the work every day,” Smith said. “He brings his hard hat and he’s really ready to work every single day. You can’t tell he’s a rookie. You really get the presence of a vet.
“When you have a guy like that you can trust him, and he’s a guy who if he steps in there, we are not going to really worry about it.
“It’s been seamless really. Just from day one, he stepped right in, and he’s been making calls and he’s been correct on most of his calls — if not all.”
How impressed has the 32-year-old, 11-year veteran quarterback been with the 23-year-old Oluwatimi immediately mastering the mental parts of the line’s most intricate spot, which has been Seattle’s mostly broken position the last eight years?
“I think it speaks volumes, I really do,” Smith said. “Speaks volumes, because obviously he has to study this stuff, so he’s going home studying and he’s preparing. Getting out there and he’s not nervous. He’s calm and he’s making the right calls and getting the rhythm.”
Kenneth Walker watches
Lead running back Kenneth Walker was in flat, sneakers, not spikes. He did not have a helmet. He watched rookies Zach Charbonnet and Kenny McIntosh team with DeeJay Dallas in the backfield behind Smith on the starting offense Thursday.
Carroll walked and talked with Walker for a couple minutes between position drills early in the practice.
The coach often gives veteran players rest days off during camp. But this was day two. Walker is 22 and in his second season after his 1,000-yard rushing breakout as a rookie in 2022. He had only had one, no-pads practice in camp before Thursday.
It was, in the least, a peculiar day off.
Michael Jackson impresses
Smith-Njigba’s catch was the play of the day.
Jackson had Thursday’s most impressive sequence.
Metcalf zoomed past Jackson down the left sideline on a fly pattern. Smith’s pass was perfect, lofted over Jackson’s outside shoulder and onto Metcalf’s hands for a 30-plus-yard catch just inside the sideline boundary at the 15-yard line.
Jackson, last year’s starting left cornerback opposite Pro Bowl rookie Riq Woolen, angrily slapped his hands together. He yelled an expletive to himself. He was ticked for allowing Metcalf to get past him for the catch.
On the next play, Metcalf lined up one on one with Jackson again outside. Smith again threw to Metcalf, on a fade route into the end zone seeking a touchdown. The determined Jackson stayed in the hulking wide receiver’s chest. Despite giving up three inches and 25 pounds to the wide receiver Jackson walled off Metcalf to the sideline and away from Smith’s pass. The ball skidded wide of them incomplete out the side of the end zone.
The offense did not score on the possession, thanks to Jackson’s resolve. The drive stalled, and Jason Myers sent a field-goal attempt from 28 yards wide of the goal post.
Jackson, the veteran who spent four years on practice squads before last season, just refuses to yield. He is taking full advantage of Witherspoon’s absence, and that of Woolen.
Woolen remains on the physically-unable-to-perform list following his arthroscopic knee surgery in May.
Extra points
- Reserve tackle Jake Curhan was beaten on consecutive pass-protection assignments, the second time soundly by defensive lineman Myles Adams, for what would have been sacks of backup quarterback Drew Lock. That is, if coaches allowed QBs to get hit. That sacks ended a scoreless 2-minute drill for the second-team offense.
- Many more screen-pass drills in this camp than in previous ones. They include one in which assistants roll two, big, black, doughnut-looking pads one after the other in the direction of the offensive linemen getting outside in front of the running back making the catch of a conventional screen pass. The pads are simulating pursuing defenders the linemen have to pick up and block on the run. Waldron is from a Los Angeles Rams system that loves screen plays like Carroll loves run plays.
- Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs on his safety partner Jamal Adams, on the PUP list still recovering from his torn quadriceps tendon from September: “He’s good. He’s in a good spot mentally, so you know when he’s out here, he’ll be out here. I just told him to take his time and it’s a process. Everyday you take it step by step and he knows what he’s doing when he gets out there.” Adams watched practice again Thursday, wearing red sneakers and a neon-green hoodie under his white, 33 practice jersey.
- Diggs, last season’s defensive captain, on Witherspoon’s holdout: “You let him handle his business. I wouldn’t want anybody in my business. ...It’s not like I don’t think ‘Spoon wants to be here; he wants to be here. You see the competitive nature when he was here during OTAs and minicamp. At the end of the day it will get handled and it will get worked out so he’ll be out here and it will be water under the bridge.”
